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1 



EVENING JOURNAL TEACT3, No. 12 



ifte pati0Ml §mxput Mil %timxi,/2.a 



SPEECH 



OP 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD, 



AT 



DETROIT, SEPTEMBER i, 1860. 



"Fmj-Loyr Citizens: 

We claim that our political system is a judicious 
one, and that we are an intelligent and virtuous 
people. The government ought therefore not only 
to secure respect and good will abroad, but also 
to produce good order, contentment and harmony 
at home. It fails to attain these ends. The 
Canadians certainly neither envy nor love us. 
All the Independent American powers from the 
Rio Grande to Cape Horn, while they strive to 
construct governments for themselves after our 
models, fear, and many of them hate us. Euro- 
pean nations do indeed revere our constitutions 
and admire our progress, but they generally 
agree in pronouncing us inconsistent with our 
organic principle, and capricious. The President 
inveighs against corruption among the people. 
The immediate representatives of the people in 
Congress, charge the President with immoral 
practices, and the President protests against 
their action as subversive of the Executive pre- 
rogative. The House of Representatives organi- 
zes itself convulsively amid confessed dangers 
of popular commotion. The Senate listens un- 
surprised, and almost without excitement, to 
menaces of violence, secession and disunion. 
Frauds and violence in the territories are pallia- 
ted and rewarded. Exposure and resistance to 
them are condemned and punished, while the 
just, enlightened and reasonable will of the peo- 
ple there, though constitutionally expressed, is 
circumvented, disobeyed and disregarded. States 
watch anxiously for unlawful intrusion and 
invasion by citizens of other states, while the 
Federal Courts fail to suppress piracies on the 
high seas, and even oa our own coasts. The 



government of the Union, courts and submits 
to state espionage of the Federal mails, while 
the states scarcely attempt to protect the per- 
sonal rights of citizens of other states, peacefully 
pursuing harmless occupations within their fra- 
ternal jurisdictions. 

Are the people satisfied and content? Let 
their several parties and masses answer. Cer- 
tainly you, the Republi ans of Michigan, as well 
as the Republicans throughout the whole country, 
are not satisfied. But you are interested in a 
change of administration, and therefore perhaps 
prejudiced. Ask then, the Constitutional Union 
men, few and inefficient indeed here, but numer- 
ous and energetic elsewhere. They are not 
satisfied. If they were they would not be en- 
gaged as they are now, in a hopeless attempt to 
organize a new party without any principles at 
all, after their recent failures to combine such a 
party on obnoxious principles. But they also 
are interested and possibly prejudiced like the 
Republicans. A]i|)eal then to the Democratic 
party, which enjoys and wields the patronage 
and power of the Federal Grovernment. Even the 
Democrats are no less dissatisfied. They certainly 
are dissatisfied with the Republicans, with the 
National Union men, with their own administra- 
tion, with each other, and as I think even indi- 
vidually, with themselves. The North is not 
satisfied. Its masses want a suppression of the 
African slave trade, and an effectual exclusion of 
slavery from the territories, so that all the new 
and future states, may surely be free states. The 
South is not satisfied. Its masses by whatever 
means, and at whatever cost, desire the estab- 
lishment and protection of slavery in the terri- 



I_ -^ -\ <J 



tories, so that none of the new states may fail to 
become slave states. The East is discoiitt^nted 
with the neglect of its fishery, manufacture and 
navigation, and the West is impatient nnder the 
operation of a national policy, hostile to its agri- 
cultural, mining and social developments. What 
government in the world but ours, has persist- 
ently refused to improve rivers, construct har- 
bors and establish lighthouses, for the protection 
of its commerce? New and anomalous combin- 
ations of citizens appear, in the North justifying 
armed instigators of civil and servile war, in the 
South devising means for the disruption and dis- 
memberment of the Union. It is manifest, 
that we are suffering in the respect and confi- 
dence of foreign states, and that disorder and con- 
fusion are more flagrant among ourselves now 
I ban ever before. 

I do not intend to be understood that these 
evils are thns far productive of material suffer- 
ing or intolerable embarrassment, much less that 
the country is, as so many extravagant persons 
say, on the high I'oad to civil war or disso- 
lution. On the contrary, this fair land we live 
in i.= so blessed with all the elements of human 
comfort and happiness, and its citizens are at 
once so loyal and wise and so well surrounded 
by yet unbroken guaranties of civil and religious 
liberty, that our experience of misrule at the very 
worst never becomes so painful as to raise the 
question how much more of public misery we 
ca,n endure; but it leaves us at liberty to stop now 
as always heretofore with the inquiry how much 
more of freedom, prosperity and honor, we can 
secure by the practice of greater wisdom and 
higher virtue ? Discontentment is the wholesome 
fruit of a discovery of maladministration, and 
conviction of public error is here at least always 
a sure harbinger of political reform. 

Martin Van Buren, they say, is writing a re- 
view of his own life, and our time, for posthu- 
mous uses. If it is not disrespectful, I should 
like to know now the conclusions he draws from 
the national events he has seen, and of which he 
has been an important part ; for he is a shrewd 
observer, with advantages of large and long ex- 
perience. To me it seems that the last forty 
years have constituted a period of signal and 
lamentable failure in the efforts of statesmen to 
adjust and establish a federal policy for the re- 
gulation of the subject of slavery in its relations 
to the Union. In this view I regard it as be- 
longing to the office of a statesman not merely to 
favor an immediate and temporary increase of 
national wealth, and an enlargement of national 
territory, but also to fortify, so far as the prescri- 
bed constitutional limits of his action may al- 
low, the influences of knowlege and humanity ; 
to abate popular prejudices and passions, by 
modifying or removing their causes ; to ascertain 
and disclose the operation of general laws and to 
study and reveal the social tendencies of the 
age, and by combining the past with the present, 
while giving free play all the time to the recijjro- 
cating action of the many co-existing moral forces, 
to develop that harmonious system which ac- 
tually prevails in the apparent chaos of human 
affairs ; and so to gain something in the way of 
assurance as to the complexion of that futurity 
towards which, since our country is destined to 
endure, and insomuch as we desire that it may be 
immortal, our thoughts are so vehemently driven 



even by the selfish as well as by the generous 
principles of our nature. 

I have understood that John Quincy Adams, 
the purest and wisest statesman I ever kn^w, 
died despairing of a peaceful solution of the pro- 
blem of slavery, on which he was so intently 
engaged throughout his public service. If we 
may judae from the absolute failures of Mr. Van 
Buren. Mr. Polk, Mr. Pierce and Mr. Buchanan 
in the respect I have mentioned, and if we take 
into consideration also the systems which Mr. 
Calhoun, Mr. Benton, Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster 
severally recommended, and which have subse- 
quently failed to be adopted, we may perhaps 
conclude that the difficulties of establishing a 
satisfactory and soothing policy have overtasked 
even our wisest and most eminent statesmen. 
They certainly have been neither incapable nor 
selfish men. No age or country has been illus- 
trated by p^iblio characters of greater genius, 
wisdom and virtue 

It is easy to see, fellow citizens, that the. fail- 
ure has resulted not from the faults of our 
statesmen, but from the peculiar constitutions 
and characters of political parties, on which 
they relied for power. Solid, enduring and con- 
stant parties, inspired by love of country, reve- 
rence for virtue and devotion to human liberty, 
bold in their conceptions of measures, moderate 
in success, and resolute throughout reverses, are 
essential to effective and beneficent administra- 
tion in every free state. Unanimity, even in a 
wise, just and necessary policy, can never be 
expected in any country all at once, and with- 
out thorough debate and earnest conflicts of 
opinion. All public movements are therefore 
undertaken and prosecuted through the agencies, 
not of individuals, but of parties regulated, 
excited and moderated, as occasion may require, 
by their representatives. He who propo.ses means 
so impracticable that he can win no party to 
their support, may be a philanthropist, but he 
cannot be a statesman ; and even when the leader 
in administration is'thus sustained, he is, although 
never so earnest or wise, everywhere and at all 
times inefficient and imbecile, just in the degree 
that the party on which he depends, is incon- 
stant, vacillating, timid or capricious. What 
has become of the several political parties, which 
have flourished within your time and mine ? 
That dashing, unterrified, defiant party, whose 
irresistible legions carried the honest and in- 
trepid hero of New Orleans on their shields, 
through so many civil encounters — that generous 
though not unprejudiced Whig party, which 
apprehensive of perpetual danger from too radi- 
cal policies of administration, so often with 
unabated chivalry and enthusiasm, magically 
recombined its bruised and scattered columns, 
even when a capricious fortune had turned its 
rare and hard won triumphs into defeats more 
disastrous than the field fights wiiich it had lost 
— the recent American party, that sprang at one 
bound from ten thousand dark chambers and 
which seemed only yesterday at the very point 
of carrying the government by a coup de main. 
All these parties, that for brief periods seemed 
so strong and so unchanging, have perished, 
leaving no deep impression on the history of the 
country they aimed to direct and rule forever. 
The Democratic party too that has clothed itself 
so complacently with the pleasant traditions of 
all preceding partias, and combined so felicitously 






the most popular of our national sympathies with 
the most inveterate and repulsive of our con- 
servative interests, that has won tlie South so 
dexterously, by stimulating its maddest ambition, 
and yet has held the North so tenaciously and 
so long, by awakening its wildest and most de- 
moralizing fears. What is its condition ? It is dis- 
tinguished in fortune from its extinguished rivals 
only, by the circumstance that both portions 
of its crew, divided as the hulk breaks into two 
not unequal parts, retain sufficient energy in 
their despair, to seize on the diifting wrecks of 
other parties, and by a cunning though hopeless 
carpentery, to frame wretched and rickety rafts 
on which to sustain themselves for one dark 
night more on the tempestuous sea of nat'onal 
politics. All these parties, it is now manifest, 
were organized not specially to establish justice 
and maintain freedom and equality among an 
honest, jealous and liberty loving people, but to 
achieve some material public advantage of tem- 
porary importance, or to secure the advancement 
of some chief to whose discretion, as if the gov- 
ernment were an elective despotism instead of a 
Republic, the distribution of its patronage and 
the direction of its atlairs should be implicitly 
confliled. They did indeed out of respect or 
fear of generous reforms, often affect to express 
elevated principles and generous sentimeiUs in 
their carefully elaborated creeds, but these 
creeds nevertheless, even when not ambiguously 
expressed, were from time to time revised and 
qualified and modified, so that at last the inter- 
preters who alone had them by heart, and were 
able to repeat them, were found perverting the 
constitution in its most unequivocal parts, and 
most palpable meaning, disparaging and reject- 
ing the Declaration of Independence, and stulti- 
fying the founders of the Republic. The parties 
thus constituted, dejjendent not on any national 
or even on any natural sentiment, but on mere 
discipline for their cohesion, and coming at last 
through constant demoralization, to assume that 
capital and not labor, property and not liberty is 
the great interest of every people, and that reli- 
gion conversant only with the relations of men 
to an unseen and future world, must be abjured 
in their conduct towards each other on earth, 
have finally discarded justice and humanity from 
their systems, broken up nearly all the existing 
combinations for spiritual ends, and attempted to 
conduct affairs of government on principles 
equally in violation of the constitution and of the 
eternal laws of God's Providence for the regula- 
tion of the Universe. 

These views of the characters of our modern 
parties are by no means newly conceived on my 
part. In that liigh and intensely excithig debate 
in Congress in the year 1850, which, overruling 
the administration of General Taylor, brought the 
two then dominating parties into a compromise at 
the time solemnly pronounced final, irrevocable 
and eternal, but which was nevertheless scattered 
to the winds of Heaven only four years afterward, 
the great statesman of Kentucky denounced party 
spirit as he assumed it to be raging throughout 
the country, as pregnant with the imminent and 
intolerable disasters of civil war and national 
dissolution. I ventured then to reply that, in 
my humble judgment, it was not a conflict of 
parties that we then were seeing and hearing, but 
It was, on the contrary, the agony of distracted 
parties, a couvulsion resulting from the too nar- 



row foundations of both of the great parties and 
of all the part'es of the day, foundations that had 
been laid in compromises of natural justice and 
human rights — that a new and great question — a 
moral question transcending the loo narrow creeds 
of existing parties had arisen — that the public 
conscience was expanding with it, and the green 
withes of party combinations were giving way 
and breaking under the pressure — that it was not 
the union that was decaying and dying as was sup- 
posed, of the fever of party spirit, but that the 
two great parties were smitten with paralysis, 
fatal indeed to them unless they should consent 
to be immediately renewed and re-organized, bor- 
rowing needful elements of health and vigor from 
a cordial embrace with the humane spirit of the 
age. 

But, fellow-citizens, to exempt our statesmen 
by casting blame on our political parties, does not 
reach, but only approximates the real source of 
responsibility. All of these parties have been 
composed of citizens, not a few but many citizens, 
in the aggregate, all the citizens of the Republic. 
They were not ignorant, willful or dishonest citi- 
zens, but sincere, faithful and useful members of 
the State. The parties of our country, what are 
they at any time, but ourselves, the people of our 
country ? Thus the faults of past administratiou 
and of course the responsibility for existing evils, 
are brought directly home to yourselves and my- 
self — to the whole people. This is no hard saying. 
Tlie wisest, justest and most virtuous of men oc- 
casionally errs and has need daily to implor"? 
the Divine Goodness that he be not led further 
into temptation ; and just so the wisest, justest 
and most virtuous of nations often unconsciously 
lose and depart from their ancient approved and 
safer ways. Is there any society, even of Christ- 
ians, that has never had occasion to reform its 
practice, retrace its too careless steps and discard 
heresies that have corrupted its accepted faith ? 
What was the English revolution of 1648, but a 
return from the dark and dangerous road of ab« 
solutism? What the French revolution, but a 
mighty convulsion, that while it carried a brave, 
enlightened, and liberty-loving nation backwart? 
on their progress of three hundred years, owea 
all its horrors to the. delay which had so long 
postponed the needed reaction ! 

A nalJtional departure always happens, when a 
great emergency occurs unobserved and unfelt, 
bringing the necessity for the attainment of somo 
new and important object, which can only be 
secured through the inspiration of some new but 
great and generous national sentiment. 

Let us see if we can ascertain in the presen' 
case, when our departure from the right and safo 
way occurred. Certainly it was not in the Re- 
voluti(niary age. The nation then experienced 
and felt a stern necessity, perceived and resolute- 
ly aimed at a transcendeutly sublime object, and 
accepted cheerfully the awakening inihiences of 
an intensely moving and generous principle. 
The necessity was deliverance from British op- 
pr -ssion; the oliject, independence ; the principle, 
the inalienable rights of man. The revolution 
was a success, because the country had in Adams 
and Jeffekson and Washington and their asso- 
ciates, the leaders, and in the Whigs, the party 
needful for this crisis, and these were sustained 
liy the people. 

Our departure was not at the juncture of the 
establishment of the constitution. The country 



then liad and owned a new and overpowering 
necessity, perceived and demanded a new object 
and adopted a new and most animating prin- 
ciple. Tlie necessity, tlie escape from anarchy ; 
the object, Federal Union; the principle, frater- 
nity of the American people. Tlie Constitution 
with the Ordinance of 1787, practically a part of 
it, was not a failure, because Hamilton, Jay and 
Madison were competent, and the Federal party 
was constant, and the people gave it a confiding 
and generous support. 

It was not in 1800, that the national deviation 
took place. Then were disclosed a new public 
necessity, new object, and new principle. A 
separation and removal of aristocratic checks and 
interests from the mechanism of our republican 
institutions. The needed reform did not fail, be- 
cause Jefferson and George Clinton, with their 
associates braved all resistance, the Republican 
party defended, and the people sustained them. 

Again the departure did not occur in 1812. 
Then was discovered a farther necessity, bring- 
ing into view a farther object and introducing 
yet another new and noble principle of action. 
Tlie necessity, a vindication of national rights ; 
the object, freedom of intercourse with mankind; 
the principle, the defence of our homes and our 
honor. The war of 1S12 was a success, because 
Clay, Calhoun and Tompkins did not shrink 
from the trial ; the Republican party approved 
and the people sustained them. 

In 1820, however, the nation had unconsciously 
reached and entered a new stage in its successful 
career, namely, that of expansion. By purchases 
from France and Spain it had extended its bor. 
ders from the St. Mary 's southward around the pen- 
insula of Florida, and from the Mississippi to the 
Rocky Mountains, an expansion to be afterwards 
indefinitely continued. We all know the advan- 
tages of expansion. They are augmented wealth 
and population. But we all know equally well, 
if we will only reflect, that no new advantage is 
ever gained in national more than in individual 
life without exposure to some new danger. 'What 
then is the danger which attends expansion ? It 
is nothing less and can be nothing less than an 
increase of the strain upon the bonds of the 
Union. The time had come io organize jiovern- 
ment finally in the newly acquired territory of 
Louisiana, on principles that should be applied 
thereafter in all cases of further expansion. This 
necessity brought into glaring light a new object, 
namely, since the only existing cause of mutual 
alienation among the states was slavery, which 
was already carefully circumscribed by the ordi- 
nance of 1787, that anomalous institution must 
now be further circumscribed by extending the 
ordinance to cover the new states to be established 
in the Louisianian purchase. To this end a new 
and humane impulse naturally moved the coun- 
try, namely, the freedom of human labor. 

But although statesmen qualified for the crisis 
appeared, no party stood forth to support them 
with constancy, and the country, after a tempor- 
ary glow of free soil excitement, subsided into 
cold indifference — and so a compromise was made 
which divided the newly acquired domain be- 
tween free labor and capital in slaves, between 
freedom and slavery, a memorable compromise, 
which, after a trial of only thirty-four years, 
proved to be efiective only in its concessions to 
slavery, while its greater guaranties of freedom 
were found unavailiog and worthless. History 



says that the compromise of 1820 was necessary 
to save the Union from disruption. I do not 
dispute history, nor debate the settled moral 
questions of the past. I only lament that it was 
necessary, if indeed it was so. History tells us 
that the course then adopted was wise. I do not 
controvert it. I only mourn the occurrence of 
even one case, most certainly the only one that 
ever did happen, in which the way of wis Icm 
has failed to be also the way of pleasantness, and 
the path of peace. It was in 1820, therefore, 
that the national deviation began. We have 
continued ever since the divergent course then 
so inconsiderately entered, until at last we have 
reached a point, where, amid confusion, bewilder- 
ment and mutual recriminations, it seems alike 
imi)ossible to go forward or to return. We have 
added territory after territory, and region after 
region with the customary boldness of feebly re- 
sisted conquerors, not merely neglecting to keep 
slavery out of our new possessions, but actually 
removing all the barriers against it which we 
found standing at the times of conquest. In 
doing this we have defied the moral opinions of 
mankind, overturned the laws and systems ot 
our fathers, and dishonored their memories by 
declaring that the unequaled and glorious con- 
stitution which they gave us, carries with it, as it 
attends our eagles, not freedom and personal 
rights to the oppressed, but slavery and a hate- 
ful and baleful commerce in slaves, wherever wo 
win a conquest by sea or land over the whole 
habitable globe. 

yWhile we must now, in deference to history, 
excuse the first divergence, it is manifest that 
our subsequent persistence in the same course 
has been entirely unnecessary and unjustifiable. 
New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Canada, what 
remains of Mexico, all the West Indies and Cen- 
tral America, are doubtless very desirable, but we 
have patiently waited for them, and are now 
likely to wait until they can be acquired without 
receiving slavery with them, or extending it over 
them. Nay, all the resistance we have ever met 
in adding Spanish American territories to our 
Republic, has resulted from our willful and 
perverse purpose of subverting freedom there, 
to blight the fairest portion of the earth, when 
we found it free, by extending over it our only 

national agency of desolation. We may doubt- 
less persist still further. We may add conquest 
to conquest, for resistance to our ambition daily 
grows more and more impossible, until we sur 
pass in extent and apparent strength the great- 
est empires of ancient or modern times, all the 
while enlarging the area of African bondage i but 
after our already ample experience, I think no 
one will be bold enough to deny that we equally 
increase the evils of discontent and the dangers 
of domestic faction. 

Fellow-citizens, while I lament the national 
divergence I have thus described, I do not 
confess it to be altogether inexcusable. Much 
less do I blame any one or more of our politicians 
or parties, while exempting otherr. All are, in 
different degrees perhaps, responsible alike, and 
all have abundant, if not altogether adequate ex- 
cuses. Deviation once begun, without realizing 
the immediate presence of danger, it was easier 
to continue on than to return. The country has 
all the time been growing richer and more pros- 
perous and populous. It was not unnatural that 

we should disregard warnings of what we were 



assured by highi though interested authorities, 
always were distant, improbable and even vision- 
ary dangers. It cannot be denied that the Afri- 
can races among us are abject, although their con- 
dition, and even their presence here are due not to 
their will or fault, but to our own, and that they 
have a direct interest in the question of slavery. 
How natural has it been to assume that the 
motive of those who have protested against the 
extension of slavery, was an unnatural sympathy 
with the negro instead of wliat it always has 
really been, concern for the welfare of the white 
man. There are few, indeed, who ever realize 
that the whole human race sufl'ers somewhat in 
the afiictions and calamities which befall the hum- 
blest and most despised of its members. 

The argument, though demanding the most dis- 
passionate calmness and kindness, has too often 
been conducted with auger and brokeu out into 
violence. 

Moreover, alarms of disunion were sounded, 
and strange political inventions like the floating 
fire ships sent down the St. Lawrence, by the 
besieged in Quebec, to terrify tlie army of Wolfe 
on the Island of St. Louis, appeared suddenly 
before us whenever we proposed to consider in 
good earnest, the subject of Federal slavery. 

We love and we ought to love the fellowship 
of our slaveholding brethren. How natural, 
therefore, has it been to make the concessions 
so necessajy to silence their complaints, rather 
than by seeming impracticability in what was 
thought a matter of indiflerence, to lose such 
genial companionship. Again, at least, present 
peace and safety together, with some partial 
guaranties and concessions of freedom, were 
from time to time obtained by compromises. 
Who had the right, or who the presumption to 
say with the certainty of being held responsible 
for casting imputations of bad faith upon our 
southern brethren, that these compromises would, 
when their interests should demand it, be dis- 
avowed and brokeu "? 

Other nations, we have assumed, are jealous of 
our growing greatness. They have censured us, 
perhaps with unjust asperity, for our apostacy in 
favor of slavery. How natural and even patri- 
otic has it been on our part to manifest by per- 
sistence, our contempt and defiance of such in- 
terested and hostile animadversions. Besides, 
though slavery is indeed now practically a local 
and peculiar institution of the South, it was not 
long ago the habit and practice of the whole 
American people. It is only twenty-five yeais 
since our British brethren abolished slavery in 
their colonies, and only half a century since we 
or any European nation interdicted the African 
slave trade. Scarcely three generations have 
passed away, since the subject of the wrongful- 
ness of slavery first engaged the consideration 
of mankind. 

You and I indeed understand now very well, 
how it is, that slavery in the territories of the 
United States, is left open by the constitution to 
our utmost peaceful opposition, while within the 
slave states, it is entrenched behind local consti- 
tutions beyond the reach of external leoislation. 
But the subject is a complex one, and the great 
masses of the people to whom it has only been 
recently presented, and doubtlessly often pie- 
sented, under unfavorable circumstances, might 
well desire time for its careful and deliberate 
examination. 



It seems a bold suggestion to say, that a great 
nation ought to reconsider a practice of torty 
years' duration ; but forty years of a nation's life, 
are equivalent to only one year in the lite of an 
individual. The thought is at least consistent 
with political philosophy, for it is not more true 
that personal persistence in error leads inevitably 
to ruin, than it is that every nation exists by 
obedience to the same moral laws which direct 
individual life, that they are written in its origi- 
nal constitution, and it must continually reform 
itself according to the spirit of those laws, or 
perish. 

My humble advice, then, fellow citizens, is, 
that we return and re-establish the original policy 
of the nation, and henceforth hold, as we did in 
the beginning, that slavery is and must be only 
a purely local, temporary and exceptional insti- 
tution, confined within the slave states where it 
alreadj' exists, while Freedom is the general, 
normal, enduring and permanent condition of 
society within the jurisdiction, and under the 
authority of the Coustitutiou of the United 
States. 

I counsel thus for a simple reason incapable of 
illumination. Slavery , however it may be at any 
time or in any place excused, is at all times and 
everywhere unjust and inhuman in its very 
nature ; while freedom, however it may be at any 
time or in any place neglected, denied, or abused, 
is in its nature right, just and beneficent. It can 
never under any cirumstances be wise to perse- 
vere voluntarily, in extending or fortifying an 
institution that is intrinsically wrong or cruel 
It can never be unwise wherever it is possible, to 
defend and fortify an existing institution that is 
founded on the rights of Humau Nature. In- 
somuch as opinions are so materially, and 
yet so unconsciously affected and modified by 
tiiue, place and circumstances, we may hold 
these great truths firmly, without impeaching 
the convictions or the motives of those who 
deny them in argument or in practice. 

I counsel thus lor another reason quite as sim- 
ple as the first. Knowledge, emulation and in- 
dependence among the members of a social state 
are the chief elements of national wealth, strength 
and power. Ignorance, indolence and bondage 
of individuals are always sources of national im- 
becility and decline. All nations in their turns 
have practised slavery. Most of them have abo- 
lished it. The world over, the wealthiest and 
most powerful nations have been those which 
tolerated it least, and which earliest and most 
completely abolished it. Virginia and Texas are 
thrown into a panic even now by the appearance 
or even the suspicion of a handful of men within 
their borders, instigating civil war. Massachu- 
setts and Vermont defied British invasion, back- 
ed by treason, eighty years ago. 

Thirdly, there is no necessity now to fortify or 
extend slavery within the United States or on the 
American continent. All the supposed necessi- 
ties of that sort ever before known, have passed 
away forever. Let us briefly review theic. With 
the discovery and conquest of America confess- 
edly came a responsibility to reclaim it from na- 
ture and 'to introduce civilization. Unfortu- 
nately Spain and Portugal, the discoverers and 
conquerors, were of all the European Slates in 
the sixteenth century, the worst qualified and 
least able to colonize. They were neither popu- 
lous, nor industrious, nor free; but were na 



tions of princes and subjects ; of soldiers, navi- 
gators, nobles, priests, poets and scholars, with- 
out merchants, mechanics, farmers, or laborers. 
The art of navigation was imperfect ; its practice 
dangerous, and the new world that the Pope had 
divided between his two most loyal crown wear- 
ing children was in its natural state pestilential. 
European emigration was therefore impracticable. 
In the emergency the conquerors, with ruffian 
violence, swept off at once the gold and silver or- 
naments which they found in the temples and 
on the persons of the natives, ignorant of their 
European values, and subjugated and enslaved 
the natives themselves. But these simple chil- 
dren of the forest, like the wild flowers when the 
hurricane sweeps over the prairies, perished un- 
der cruelties so contrary to nature. 

The African trade, in prisoners of war spared 
from slaughter, afforded an alternative. The 
chiefs sold tea men, women or children, for a 
single horse. The conquerors of America brought 
this unnatural merchandise to our coasts. When 
the English colonists of North America, happily 
in only a very limited degree, borrowed from 
their predecessors this bad practice of slavery, 
they borrowed also its wretched apology, a want 
of an adequate supply of free labor. It was then 
thought an exercise of Christian benevolence to 
rescue the African heathen from eternal suffering 
in a future state, and tlirough the painful path of 
earthly bondage to open to him the gates of the 
celestial paradise. But all this is now changed. 
We are at last no feeble or sickly colonies, but a 
great, populous, homogeneous nation, unsur- 
passed and unequaled iu all the elements of 
colonization and civilization. Free labor hero 
continually increases and abounds, and is fast 
verging towards European standards of value. 
There is not one acre too much in our broad 
domain for the supply of even three generations 
of our free population, with their certain increase. 
Immigration from Europe is crowding our own 
eons into the western region, and this movement 
is daily augmented by the application of new 
machines for diminishing mechanical and even 
agricultural labor. At this very moment. Con- 
gress, after a long and obstinate reluctance, finds 
itself obliged to yield a homestead law to relieve 
the pressure of labor in the Atlantic States. Cer- 
tainly, therefore, we have no need and no room 
for African slaves in the Federal territories. Do 
you say that we want more sugar and more cot- 
ton, and therefore must have more slaves and 
more slave labor. I answer, first, that no class 
or race of men have a right to demand sugar, 
cotton, or any other comfort of human life to be 
wrung for them, through the action of the Fede- 
ral Government, from the unrewarded and com- 
pulsory labor of any other class or race of men. 

I answer, secondly, that we have sugar and 
cotton enough already for domestic consumption 
and a surplus of the latter for exportation with- 
out any increase of slave territory. Do you say 
that Europe wants more sugar and cotton than 
we can now supply 1 I reply, let then Europe 
send her free laborers hither, or into Italy, or into 
the West Indies, or into the East ; or if it suit 
them better, let them engage the natives of cotton 
growing regions in the old world, to produce 
cotton and sugar voluntarily and for adequate 
compensation. Such a course, instead of fortify- 
ing and enlarging the sway of slavery here, will 
leave us free to favor its gradual removal. It will 



renew or introduce civilization on the shores of 
the Mediterranean and throughout the coasts of 
the Indian Ocean. Christiaiuty, more fully deve- 
loped and better understood now than hereto- 
fore, turns with disgust and horror from the em- 
ployment of force and piracy as a necessary 
agency of the Gospel. 

Fourthlij. All the subtle evasions and plausible 
political theories which have heretofore been 
brought into the argument for an extension of 
slavery, have at last been found fallacious and 
frivolous. 

It is unavailing now to say that this govern- 
ment was made by and for white men only, since 
even slaves owed allegiance to Great Britain bo- 
fore the Revolution equally with white men, and 
were equally absolved from it by the Revolution, 
and are not only held to allegiance now under 
our laws, but are also subjected to taxation and 
actual representation in every department of the 
Federal Government. No government can ex- 
cuse itself from the duty of protecting the 
extreme rights of every human being, whether 
foreign or native born, bond or free, whom it 
compulsorily holds within its jurisdiction. The 
great fact is now fully realized that the African 
race here is a foreign and feeble element like the 
Indians, incapable of assimilation, but not the 
less, therefore, entitled to such care and protec- 
tion as the weak everywhere may require from 
the strong ; that it is a pitiful exotic unwisely and 
unnecessarily transplanted into our fields, and 
which it is unprofitable to cultivate at the cost of 
the desolation of the native vinyard. Nor will the 
argument that the parly of slavery is national 
and that of freedom sectional, any longer avail 
when it is fully understood, that so far as it 
is founded in truth, it is only a result of that 
perversion of the constitution which has at- 
tempted to circumscribe freedom, and to make 
slavery universal throughout the Republic. 
Ecjualiy do the reproaches, invectives and satires 
of the advocates of slavery extension fail, ^ince 
it is seen and felt that truth, reason and human- 
ity, can work right on without fanaticism and 
bear contumely without retaliation. I counsel 
his course farther, because the combinations of 
slavery are broken up, and can never be renewed 
with success. Any new combination must be 
based on the principle of the Southern Demo- 
cratic faction, that slavery is inherently just and 
beneficent, and ought to bo protected, which 
can no longer be tolerated in the North ; or else 
on the principle of the Northern Democratic 
faction that slavery is indifferent and unworthy 
of federal j)roteotion, which is insufficient in the 
South, while the national mind has actually 
passed far beyond both of these principles, and 
is settled in the conviction that slavery, where- 
ever and howsoever it exists, exists only to be 
regretted and dei>lored. 

I counsel this course farther, because the 
necessity for a return to the old national way 
has become at last absolute and imperative. We 
can extend slavery into new territories, and cre- 
ate new slave states only by re-opening the 
African slave trade ; a proceeding which, by 
destroying all the existing values of the slaves 
now held in the country, and their increase, 
would bring the north and the south into com- 
plete unanimity in favor of that return. 

Finally I counsel that return because a States- 
man has been designated who possesses, in aa 



eminent and most satisfactory degree, the virtues 
and the qualifications necessary for the leader in 
so great and generous a movement ; and I feel 
well assured that Abraham Lincoln will not fail 
to re-inaugurate tlie ancient constitutional policj 
in tlie administration of the government success- 
fully, because the Republican party, after ample 
experience, has at last acquired the courage and 
tlie constancy necessary to sustain him, and be- 
cause I am satisfied that the people, at last fully 
cotivinced of the wisdom and necessity of the 
proposed reformation, are prepared to sustain 
and give it effect. 

But, when it shall have been accomplished, 
what may we expect then ; what dangers must 
we incur ; what disasters and calamities must we 
suffer ? I answer no dangers, disasters or calami- 



ties. All parties will acquiesce, because it will 
be the act of the people, in the exercise of their 
sovereign jiower, in conformity with the consti- 
tution and laws, and in harmony with the eternal 
principles of justice, and the benignant spirit of 
the age in which we live. All parties and all 
sections will alike rejoice in the settlement of a 
controversy, which has agitated the country and 
disturbed its peace so long. We shall regain the 
respect and good will of the Nations, and once 
more, consistent with our principles, and witli 
our ancient character, we shall, with their free 
consent, take our place at their head, in their 
advancing progress, towaids a In'gher and more 
hapjiy, because more humane and more genial 
civilization. 



Bt^im of the %Uxid 3hU^^ 



SPEECH 



DELIVERED BY 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD, 



AT 



ST. PAUL, SEPTEMBER 18, 1860. 



Fellow Citizens : — One needs to have had 
something of the experience that it has been my 
fortune to have, living in a State at an early 
period of its material development and social 
improvement, and growing up with its growing 
greatness in order to appreciate the feeling with 
which I am oppressed on this, my first entrance 
into the capital of the State of Minnesota. 
Every step of my progress since I reached the 
Northern Mississippi has been attended by an 
agreeable and great surprise. I had early read 
the works in which the geographer had des- 
cribed the scenes on which I was entering, and I 
had studied these scenes in the finest produc- 
tion of art. But still the grandeur, the luxuri- 
ance, the benificence, the geniality of this region 
were entirely unconceived. When I saw these 
sentinel walls that look down on the Mississippi, 
seen as I beheld them in their autumnal verdure, 
just when the earliest tinges of the fall give va- 
riety to the luxuriance of the forest, I thought 
how much of taste and genius had been wasted 
in celebrating the highlands of Scotland before 
, civilized man had reached the banks of the 
Mississippi. And then that beautiful Lake 
Pepin scene at sunset, when the autumnal green 
of the hills was lost in a deep blue hue that imi- 
tates that of the heavens. The genial yellow 
atmosphere reflected the rays of the setting sun, 
and the skies above seemed to come down to 
spread their gorgeous drapery over this scene. 
It was a piece of upholstery such as no hand but 
that of nature could have made; and it was but 
the vestibule to the capital of the State of Min- 
nesota — a State which I have loved, which I 
ever shall love, for more reasons than time would 
allow me to mention, but . chiefly because it is 
one of three States which my own voice has 
been potential in bringing into the federal Union 
within the time that I have been engaged in the 
federal councils. Every one of the three was a 
free State, and I believe, on my soul, that of the 



whole three Minnesota is the freest of all. (Loud 
applause.) 

I find myself now, for the first time, on the 
high lands of the centre of the continent of ?Jorth 
America, equidistant from the waters of Hud- 
son's Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, from the At- 
lantic ocean to the ocean in which the sun sets 
— here, on the spot where spring up, almost side 
by side, so that they may kiss each other, the 
two great rivers — the one of which, pursuing its 
strange, capricious, majestic, vivacious career 
through cascade and river, and rapid, lake after 
lake, and river after river ; finally, after a course 
of twenty-five hundred miles, brings your com- 
merce halfway to the ports of Europe ; and the 
other, which meandering through woodland and 
prairie a distance of twenty-five hundred miles, 
taking in tributary after tributary from the East 
and from the West, bringing together the waters 
from the western declivity of the Alleghanies 
and those which trickle down the Eastern sides 
of the Rocky Mountains, finds the Atlantic 
Ocean in the Gulf of Mexico. (Applause.) Here 
is the central place whence the agriculture of the 
richest region of North America must bear its 
tribute to the supplies of the whole world. (Ap- 
plause.) On the East, all along the shore of 
Lake Superior, and on the West stretching in 
one broad plain, in a belt quite across the conti- 
nent, is a country where State after State is yet 
to rise, and where the productions for the sup- 
port of human society in other crowded States 
must be brouglit forth. This is, then, a com- 
manding field ; but it is as commanding in re- 
gard to the destinies of this continent as it is in 
regard to its commercial future, for power is not 
to reside permanently on the eastern slope of 
the Alleghany Mountains, nor in the sea|)oits. 
Seaports have always been overrun and coni roll- 
ed by the people of the interior. The people of 
the inland and of the upland — those who inhabit 
the sources of the mighty waters — are they who. 



10 



supply them with wealth and power. The power 
of lliis soveiiinieiit heieafier is not to be estab- 
lislied on eitlier tlie Atlantic or the Pacific coast. 
The seajiorls will be the mouths by which we 
shall conimunicale and corrcsj)ond with Europe; 
but the power that shall speak and shall com- 
municate and express the will of men on this 
continent is to be located in the Mississipi)i Val- 
ley, and at the -sources of the Mississippi and 
the St. Lawrence. (Loud applause.) In other 
days, studying wliat mioht, i)erhaps have seem- 
ed to oihers trifling or visionary, I have cast 
about for the future, the ultimate, central seat 
of i)ower of the North American people. I had 
looiied at Queliec and New Orleans, at Washing- 
ton and at San Francisco, at Cincinnati and at 
St. L.iuiSj'and it liad been the result of my best 
conjecture that the' seat of power for North Ame- 
rica would be yet found in the valley of Mexico, 
that the glories of the Aztec capital woulil be 
lenewed, and tliat city would become ultimately 
the Capital of the United States of America. But 
I have corrected that view, and I now believe 
tliat the ultimate last seal of ])ower on this con- 
tinent will be foiuid somewhere witliin a radius 
not very far from the very spot where I stand, at 
the head of navigation on the Mississippi river. 
(Loud applause ) 

Fellow citizens, I have often seen, but never 
with areat surprise, that on the occasion of a 
great revival of religion in a community where 
I ha|ipen to live, the oldest, tlie most devout, the 
most religious preacher, he whose life had seemed 
to me and to the world to be best ordered, ac- 
cording to the laws of God, and in affection to 
the interests of mankind — that such as he dis- 
covered, in the heat of this religious excitement, 
that he had been entirely mistaken in his own 
ex))erience, and that he now found out, to his 
great grief and astonishment, that he had never 
before been converted, and that now, for the first 
time, he had become a Christian. (Laughter.) 
While I stand here I almost fall into the notion 
that I am in the category of that preacher — 
(laughter) — and that, although I cannot charge 
myself with having been really a seditious, or 
even a disloyal citizen, or an unobservant public 
man, I have yet never exactly understood the 
duties that I owed to society and the spirit that 
belongs to an American statesman. Tliis is be- 
cause I liave never, until now, occupied that 
place whence I could grasp and take in the whole 
grand panorama, of the continent., for the hap]ii- 
ness f)f whose present people and of whose fu- 
ture millions it is the duty of an American 
statesman to labor. I have often said, and in- 
deed thousht, that one would get a very adequate, 
a very hi^h idea of the greatness of tliis Ameri- 
can republic of ours if lie stood, as I have done, 
on the deck of an American sliip-of-war as she 
sailed the Mediterranean, and, passing through 
the Ionian Islands, ascended the Adriatic, bear- 
ing at the masthead the stripes and stars, that 
commanded res|iect and ins])ired fear, equnlly 
amotiglhc semi-barbarians of Asia and the most 
polite and powerful of the nations of Emope — I 
have often thought that I cciild lift myself uji to 
the conception of the Kieatness of this republic 
of ours by taking my stand on the terrace of the 
■Ca[)itol at Wasliiiigton, and contemplating the 
concentration of tlie political power of the Amer- 
ican people, and following out in my imagina- 



tion the despatches by which that will, after 
being modified by the executive and legislative 
de|iarlnients, went forth as laws and edicts, and 
ordinances, for the government of a great peo- 
ple. But, after all, no such place as either of 
these is equal to that which I now occupy. 

I seem to myself to stand here on this eminence 
as the traveler who climbs to the dome of St. 
Peter's in Rome, and thcie, through the opening 
in that dome appears to be in almost direct and 
immediate communication with the Almighty 
power that directs and controlls the actions and 
the wills of men, while he looks down from that 
eminence on the priests and votaries who vainly 
'■'T. by Itoring over books and prayers, to study 
out the will of the Eternal. So it is with me. 
I can stand here and look far off in to the North- 
west and see the Russian, as he busily occupies 
himself in establishing seaports and towns, and 
fortifications, as outposts of the empire of St. 
Peteishurg, and I can say, "Go on; build up 
your outposts to the Arctic ocean. They will 
yet become the outposts of my own counti y, to 
extend the civilization of the United States in 
the Northwest." So I look on Prince Rupert's 
land and Canada, and see how an ingenious peo- 
ple and a capable, enlightened government, are 
occupied with bridging rivers and making rail- 
roads and telegraphs, to develop, organize, create 
and preserve the British provinces of the north, 
by the great lakes, the St. Lawrence and around 
the shores of Hudson's Bay, and I am able to 
say, " It is very well ; you are building excellent 
Slates to be hereafter ad mi I ted into the American 
Union." (Applause.) I can look Southward and 
see, amid all the convulsions that are breaking up 
the ancient provinces of Spain, the Spanish Amer- 
ican republics — see in their decay and dissolution 
the preparatory stage for their reorganization in 
free, equal and independent members of tha 
United States of America. Standing on such an 
eminence and looking with that far distant range 
of vision, I can now look down on the States and 
the people of the Atlantic coast — of Maine and 
Massachusetts, and NewYork and Pennsylvania, 
and Virginia and the Carolinas, and Georgia and 
Louisiana, and Texas, and round by the Pacific 
coast to California and Oregon — I can hear'their 
disputes, their fretful controversies, their threats 
that if their own separate interests aie not grati- 
fied and consulted by the federal government, 
they will separate from this Union — will secede 
from it. will dissolve it; and while Ihear on their 
busy sidewalks these clamorous contentions I 
am able to say, " Peace ; be still. These sub- 
jects of contention and dispute that so irritate, 
and anger, and provoke you, are but ephemeral 
or temporary. I'hese institutions which you so 
much desire to conserve, and for which you think 
you would sacrifice the welfare of the jjcople of 
this continent, are almost as ephemeral as your- 
selves." The man is horn to-day whr will live to 
see the AmericanU nion, the Amerccan people — the 
whole of them — coming into the harmonious un- 
derstanding that this is the land of the free 
man — for the free man — thai it is the land for 
the white man ; and pittt whatever elemeyiis there 
are to disturb its present peace or irritate the 
passions of its possessors will in the end — and 
that end will come before long — pass away, with- 
out capacity in any way to disturb the harmony 
of or endanger t}^ is great Union. (Applause.) 



11 



Fellow citizens, it is under the influence of re- 
flections like these that I tliank Gcxl lieie to-day, 
more fervently tlian ever, that I live in such a 
great country as this, and that my lot has been 
cast in it — not before the period when j)oliti(.al 
society was to be organized, nor yet in that distant 
period when it is to collapse and fall into ruin, 
but that I live in the very day and hour wlicu 
political societ)' is to be effectually organized 
throughout this entire country. Fellow citizens, 
we seem here and now to feel, to come into the 
knowledge of, that high necessity which compels 
every state in this Union to be, not separated and 
several States, but one part of the American re- 
public. We see and feel more than ever, when 
we come up here, that fervent heat of benevo- 
lence and love for the region in which our lot is 
cast, that will not suffer the citizens of Maine, the 
citizens of South Carolina, the citizens of Texas, 
or the citizens of Wisconsin or Minnesota, to be 
aliens to, or enemies of, each other, but which 
on the other hand compels them to be members 
of one great political family. Aye, and we see 
nior«— how it is that while society is convulsed 
with the jealousies between native and foreign 
born in our Atlantic cities and on our Pacific 
coast, and tormented with the rivalries and jea- 
lousies produced by difference of birth, of lan- 
guage and of religion, here in this central point 
of the republic the German, and the Irishman, 
and the Italian, and the Frenchman, and the 

■ Hollander, becomes, in s[)ite of himself, almost 
completely, in his own eyes and in his children's, 
an American citizen. (Applause.) We see and 
feel, therefore, the unity, in other words, that 
constitutes, and compels us to constitute, not 
many nations, not many peo[>les, but one nation 
and one peoi>le only. (Ajiplause.) Valetudina- 
rians of the North liave been in the habit of 
seeking the sunny skies of the South to restore 
their wasting frames under consumption ; and 
valetudinarians of the South have been accus- 
tomed to seek the skies of Italy for the same le- 
lief. Now you see the valetudinarians of tlie 
whole continent, from the frozen North and fmm 
the burning South, resort, to tlie sources of the 
Mississippi for an atmosphere which sliall rein- 
vigorate and restore tliem to health. (Applause.) 
Do you not see and feel here that this atmos- 
phere has another virtue — tiiat when men fiom 
Maine and from Carolina, and from ;\Iississi]ipi 
and from New Hampshire, and from Englaiid 
and Ireland and Scotland, from Germany and 
from all other j)ortions of the world, come up 
here into this same valley of the Mississippi, tlie 
atmosphere, when it once becomes naturalized 
to theii- lungs, becomes the atmosphere not only 
of iiealtli, but of lilierty and freedom'! (Ap- 
plause.) Doive not feel when we come up here ihat 
we have not only found the temple and the shrine 
of freedom, hut that we have come into the actual 
living presence of the Goddess of Freedom? (Loud 
Apphiuse.) Once in her presence we see that no 
less capacious temple could be fit for the worship 
that is her due. 

I wish, my fellow citizens, that al] my asso- 
ciates in jniltlic life could come up here witli me 

< and learn by experience, as I have done, tlie ele- 
vation and serenity of soul which pervade the 
people of the great Nortliwest. It is the only 
region of the United Slntcs in which T find f;afei- 
nity and mnlual charity fully developed. (Ap- 
plause.) Since I first set my foot iu the valley of 



the Upper Mississippi I have met men of all sects 
and of all religions, men of the republican i)arty 
and of the democratic parly and of the Ameri- 
can party, and I have not heard one reproachful 
word, one disdainful sentiment. I have seen 
that you can differ, and yet not disagree. (Ap- 
plause.) I have seen that you can love jour 
parties and the statesmen of your choice, and 
yet love still more the country, and its rulers, 
the peoiile — the sovereign people — not the s(i nat- 
ter sovereignties, scattered so winecast in distairt 
and remote Territories which you are never to 
enter, Jind so devised that they may be sold, atid 
that the Supreme Court of the United States 
may abolish sovereignty and the sovereigns also. 
(Laughter.) You love the sovereignty that you 
possess yourselves, where every man is his own 
sovereign — the popular sovereignty that belongs 
to me, and the popular sovereignty that belongs 
to you, and the equal popular sovereignty that 
belongs to every other man who is under the 
government and protection of the United States. 
(Applause.) Under the influence of s,uch senti- 
ments and feelings as these I scarcely know how 
to act or speak when I come before you at the 
command of the people of Minnesota, as a re- 
publican. I feel that, if we could be but a little 
more indulgent, a little more patient with each 
other, a little more charitable, all the grounds 
on which we disagree would disappear and jiass 
away, just as false popular sovereignty is passing 
away; and let us all. if we cannot confess our- 
selves to be all republicans, at least, agree that 
we are American citizens. (Applause.) I see 
here, moreover, how it is that in spite of sec- 
tional and personal ambition, the form and body 
and spirit of this nation organizes itself and con- 
solidates itself out of the equilibrium of irre- 
pressible and yet healthful political counter- 
balancing forces, and how out of that equilibrium 
is jiroduced just exactly that one thing wliith 
the interests of the continent and of mankind 
require should be developed here — and that is a 
federal republic of separate republican and demo- 
cratic States. 

I see here how little you and I, and those who 
are wiser and better and greater than you or I, 
have done, and how little they can do, to pro- 
duce the very political condition for the people 
of this continent which they are assuming, and 
under which they are permanently to remain — 
and that is the condition of a free people. I 
see that while we seemed to ourselves to have 
been trying to do much and to do everything, 
and while many fancy that they have done a 
great deal, yet what we have been doing, what 
we now are doing, what we shall hereatler do, 
and what we and those who may come after us 
shall continue to be doing, is just exactly what 
was necessary to be done, whether we knew it 
or not, for the interests of humanity on this 
globe, and therefore it was certain to be done, 
because necessity is only another expression or 
name for the higher law. God ordains that what 
is useful to be done shall be done. (Applause.) 
When I survey the American people as tliey are 
developing themselves fully and perfectly here. 
I see that they are doing what the exigencies of 
political society throughout the world have 
at last rendered it necessary to be done. Society 
tried for six thousand years how to live and im- 
prove, and perfect itself under monarchical and 
aristocratic systems of government, while piac- 



12 



tising a system of depredation and slavery on each 
other ; and the result has been all over the world, 
a complete and absolute fiiilure. At last, at the 
close of the last century, the failure was discov- 
ered, and a revelation was made of the necessity 
of a sy>tem in which henceforth men should 
ceas^e to enslave each other and should govern 
tlieniselves. (Applause.) Nowhere in Africa, in 
Asia or in Europe, was there an open field where 
iliis great new work of the reorganization of a 
political society under more favorable forms of 
government could be attempted. They were all 
occupied. This great and unoccupied continent 
farni-^hed the very theatre that was necessary, 
and to it come all the bold, the brave, the free 
men throughout the world, who feel and know 
lliat necessity, and who have the courage, the 
manhood and the humanity to labor to produce 
this great organization. Providence set apart 
ihis continent for this work, and, as I think, set 
apart and designated this particular locality for 
tlie place whence shall go forth continually the 
ever-renewing spirit which shall bring the people 
of all otfier portions of the continent up to a 
continual advance in the establishment of this 
s\ stem. I will make myself better understood 
by saying that, until the beginning of the present 
century, men had lived the involuntary subjects 
of political governments, and that the time had 
come when mankind could no longer consent to 
be so governed by force. 

The time had come when men were to live 
voluntary citizens and sovereigns themselves of 
t!ie Stales which they possessed; and that is the 
principle of the government established here. It 
lias only one vital principle All others are re- 
solved into it. That one principle — what is if? 
It, is the c(juality of every man wlio is a member 
<.f the State to be governed. If there be not abso- 
lute political equality, then some portion of the 
))i'ople are g<n'erned by force, and are not volun- 
taiy citizens ; and whenever any portion of the 
ciUzens are governed by force, then you are car- 
ried so far backward a^ain toward the old sys- 
tem of involuntary citizenship, or a government 
by kings, lords and standing army. This was 
the great necessity, not of the people of the Uni- 
ted States alone. It was not even the original 
conception of the people of the United States 
that a republican government was to be estab- 
lished for themselves alone ; but the establish- 
ment of the republican system of the United 
Slates of America was only bringing out and re- 
ducing to actual practice the ideas and opinions 
wliich men had already formed all over the civ- 
ilized world ; and if you will refer to the action 
of our forefathers you will find that while they 
labored, as they miiiht well labor, to secure this 
government in its republican form for themselves 
and their posterity, yet they were conscious that 
tliey were erecting it as a model for the people of 
every nation, kindred and tongue under heaven. 
The old Continental Congress of 1787 declared 
that the interests of the United States were the 
ii.lerests of human nature, and that it was the 
l)o;itical redemption of human nature that was 
to be worked out on the continent of North Ame- 
rica, and, as I have said, it is to be brousht to its 
jierfection here in the valley "f the Mississippi. 
Now, fellow citizens, the framcrs of the Ilepub- 
lic conceived this necessity — they assumed this 
high responsibility. They never c(uild have 
done so except for the crisis of the Revolution, 



which kindled enlightened patriotism within the 
bosoms of the people, and enabled them, for a 
brief peiiod, to elevate themselves up above tem- 
porary and ephemeral interests and prejudices, 
and to rise to the great task of organizing and 
constituting a free govermnent. The people un- 
derstood the great principle on which it was to 
be founded — the political equality of the whole 
people — and thai they did so understand it you 
will see in the Declaration of Independence, in 
which, beginning to lay the foundations of this 
great republic, they laid them on the great truth 
that all men are created equal, and have inalien- 
able rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of hap- 
piness. But it was not the good fortune of our 
forefathers to be al)le to find full and ample ma- 
terials all of the right kind, for the erection of 
the temple of liberty which they constructed. 
Providence has so ordered it that all the materi- 
als for any edifice which the liuman head is re- 
quired to devise and the human hand to construct 
cannot be found anywhere. If you propose to 
build a limestone house you may excavate the 
ground on which it is to be placed, and take 
from the bosom of the earth the stones, and lay 
them all away in their proper place in the foun- 
dation and walls But other materials besides 
the limestone enter into the noblest structure 
that you can make. There must be some lime 
and some sand, and some iron, and some wood, 
and you must combine materials to make any 
human structure. 

Even the founders of a great republic like 
this, wishing and intending to place it on the 
principle of the equality of man, had to take 
such materials as they found. They had to take 
a society in which some were free and some were 
slaves, and to form a Union in which some were 
free states and some were slave states. They had 
the ideal before them, but they were unable to 
perfect it all at once. What did they do ? They 
did as the architect does who raises a structure 
of stone, and lime and sand; and where there is 
a weakness of the material, and where the 
strength of the edifice would be impaired, he 
applies braces and props, and bulwarks and 
battlements, to strengthen and fortify, so as to 
make the weak part combine with and be held 
together in soliil connection with the firm and 
strong. That is what our fathers intended to 
do, and what they did do, when they framed the 
federal government. Seeing this element of 
slavery, which they could not eliminate, they 
said, " We will take care that it shall not weak- 
en the edifice and bring it into ruin. We will 
take care that, although we may allow slaves 
now, the number of slaves hereafter shall dimin- 
ish and the number of white men shall increase, 
and that ultimately the element of free white 
men shall be so strong that the element of sla- 
very shall be inadequate to produce any serious 
danger, calamity or disaster." How did they do 
this 1 They did it in a simple way : by authori- 
zing Congress to prohibit, and practically by 
prohibiting the African slave trade after the 
expiration of twenty years from the establish- 
ment of the Constitution, supposing that if no 
more slaves were imi)orted the American people 
I — then almost unanimously in favor of emanci- 
I pation — would be able to eliminate from the 
I country the small amount of slavery, which 
j would be left to decay and decline for want of 
I invigoratioQ by the African slave trade. They 



13 



did another tiling. Tliey sot apart the- territory 
noi'thwest of tlie Ohio river — all of the unoccu- 
pied domnin of the United States — for freemen 
only, declaring that neither slavery nor involun- 
tary servitude should ever enter on its soil. 
They did one thing more. They declared tliat 
Congress should pass uniform laws of naturali- 
zation, so that when the importation of African 
slaves should cease voluntary emigration of free- 
men from all other lands should be encouraged 
and stimulated. Thus, while unable to exclude 
slavery from the system, they provided for the 
development and perfection of the principle — 
gradually approaching it — that all men are born 
free and equal. 

.\nd now, fellow citizens, we see all around us 
the results of that wise policy. Certain of the 
States concurred partially in the policy of the 
fathers. I need not t«ll you what States they 
were. They were Massachusetts, Vermont, 
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jer- 
sey and Pennsylvania. Some other States did 
not. I need not tell you what States they were. 
They were the six Southern States of the union. 
The six Southern States said : '• Although the 
Constitution has arrested the slave trade and in- 
vited immigration, and adopted the policy of 
making all the men of the States free and equal, 
yet we will adhei-e to the system of slavery." 
Well, what is the result 1 You see it in the 
cities of Boston, New York and Philadelphia. 
You see it in the wheat fields of New York, of 
Oliio, of Indiana, of Illinois, of Wisconsin. 
Y'ou see it in the flocks of sheep in Vermont atid 
New Hampshire. You see it in the cattle tliat 
multiply and abound upon a thousand hills. You 
see it in the millions of spindles in the manufac- 
tories of the East, and in the forges and furnaces 
of Pennsylvania. You see it in the crowded 
shipjung of New York, and in her palaces and 
towers, ambitiously emulating the splendors of 
the Old World, and grasping to herself the com- 
merce of the globe. Y'ou see even in California 
and Oregon the same results. You see them in 
the copper dug out on the banks of Lake Supe- 
rior, the iron in Pennsylvania, the aypsum in 
New York, the salt in Ohio and New York, the 
lead in Illinois, and the silver and the gold in the 
free States of the Pacific coast. In all these you 
see the fruits of this policy. 

Neither in forests, nor mines, nor manufacto- 
ries, nor workshops, is their one African slave 
that turns a wheel or supplies oil to keep the 
machinery in motion. (Applause.) On the other 
hand you see millions of freemen crowding each 
other in a perpetual wave, rolling over from 
Europe on the Atlantic coast, spreading over and 
building up great States from the foot of the 
Alleghany mountains, rolling over thence year 
after year, until they build up in nine years a 
capital in Miimesota equal to the capital built in 
anj^ slave State in the Union in two hundred 
years. (Cheers.) You see here the fruits of this 
great policy of the fathers ; you see what conies 
of a wise policy. But do not let us mistake it 
for policy. It is not policy; it is the simple 
national practice of justice, of equal and exact 
justice to all men — for this freedom which wo 
boast so highly, which we love so dearly, and so 
justly, which we prefer above every other earth- 
ly good, and without which earth is unfit for 
the habitation of man — what is it 1 Nothing but 
you allowing to me my rights, and I allowing to 



you equal rights — every man having exactly his 
own, the right to decide whether he will labor or 
[jcrish, whether he will labor ami eat, or will be 
idle and die — and if he will labor, for what he « ill 
labor and for whom he will labor, and tlie ri^iht 
to discharge his employer just exactly as the 
employer can discharae him. (Cheers.) You 
see the fruits of this policy in another way. do 
over the American continent, from one end of it 
to the other, wherever the principle of equality 
has been retained, and every citizen of a State, 
and every citizen of every other State and every 
exile from a foreign nation, may write, f)rint, 
speak a!|<i vote — when he acquires the right to 
vote — just exactly as he ijlea.^es, and there is no 
man to molest him, no man to terrify him, no 
man even to comjilain. And now reverse the 
picture, and go into any State that has retained 
the principle of the inoijuality of man, and de- 
termined I hat it will maintain it to the last, and 
you will find the State where not even the native 
born citizen and slaveholder, or certainly none 
but him, can express his opinion on the question 
whether the Afiican is or is not a descendant of 
Ham, or wiietber he is equal or inferior to the 
white man, and if he be inferior, whether it is 
not the duty of the white man to enslave him. 
No, " muiu's the word " for freemen wherever 
slavery is retained and cherished — silence, the 
absence of freedom of speech and of freedom of 
the press. What kind of freedom is that 1 Is 
there a man in Miimesota who would for one day 
consent to live in it 'f he were not indulged in 
the exercise of the right to hurrah for Linc<ihi 
or to hurrah for Douglas, to hurrah for freedom 
or to liuriah for slavery. I think that these 
180,000 people would be seen moving right out, 
east and west, into British North America or 
into Kamtschatka. anywheie on the earth, to get 
out of this luxuriant and fertile valley, if any 
power, human or divine, should declare to them 
that they spoke and voted their real sentiments 
and their real choice at their peril. .Now, fellow 
citizens, you need oidy look around through 
such a mass of American citizens as I can see 
before me, and you may go over all the free 
Stales in this Union, and you will find them 
every- day of the weelv somewhere gathered to- 
gether, expressing their oi)iiiions, and preparing 
to declare their will, just exactly as you are 
doing. Does this happen to be sol Is it man's 
woik, or device, or contrivance, that on this 
land, on this side of the great lakes, on this side 
of the Atlantic Ocean, on this side only of the 
Pacific Ocean, men may all meet or may all stay 
apart, may all s[)eak, think, act, print, write and 
vote just exactly as they please, while there is no 
other land on the face of the earth where ten 
men can be assembled together to exercise the 
.same rights without being dispersed by an armed 
band of soldiers 7 Does \t happen to be so in 
the United States or is it the result of that 
higher law, controlling the destinies of races and 
of nations of men, so as to bring out and perfect 
here what I have described as the great consti- 
tution of society, of a self-governing people, the 
practice of cqu.d and exact justice amoiig each 
other. Manifestly it is not of man's device or 
contrivance, but it is a superior power that 

" Kliapf 8 our ende, 

Rough hew them how we may." 

Now, fellow citizens, while we see how obvi- 
ously this is the result of controlling necessity, 



14 



lio.v obviously we i-e:i<l thiil it is in acooiilaiice 
wiiii Uie vei-y pui'p ■.If ofu l-K'neficL-Mt Pi oviilenee. 
liow shiLjular and h^lrange it, is that so nmcli 
pains have been taken to defeat and prevent the 
oig'anizatio-ii and perfection of this very system 
of governiueiit among us. .What has not the 
nation seen done and permitted to be done at 
Washington 1 It has permitted statutes to be 
made, and judgments to be rendered in its 
name, declaring that men are not freemen, but 
that in certain conditions and in certain places 
they are merchandise. The Supreme Court of 
the United States never rises without recording 
Judgments and directing executions for the sale 
of men, women and children, as merchandise. 
And this is done in your name and mine. The 
Constitution never declared, uever intended to 
declare, was never by its framers understood to 
declare, that any man could be a chattle and 
merchandise. (Applause. " Three cheers for 
that declaration.") All that it did declare was 
that all men should have rights to personal se- 
curity and personal liberty within the action of 
the federal government. You see how we have 
had new religious systems established among us 
teaching that the African slaves among us, all 
Africans, are the children of an accursed parent, 
who was cursed not only in his own person and 
in his own day and generation, but in all his 
generations, and teaching that everybody had a 
risht to curse his generation. We have had 
religious systems established among us, teaching 
that it is our duty to capture and return to 
slavery slaves escaping from their masters, be- 
cause St. Paul sent back Oncsimus, as they say, 
to his master — religious systems even teaching 
that it is the duty of men in a free State, not 
only to submit to laws passed for the purpose 
of e.\tending human bondage, but even person- 
ally to execute them. You have seen in a por- 
tion of the Union how the great governing race, 
the wliite men, actually deprive themselves largely 
of the advantages of education and instruction 
for the greater security of keeping slaves in 
ignorance, so that schools and colleges, libraries 
and universities, as they are organized and per- 
fected in the free States, and now in most of the 
States of Western Europe, are incapable of being 
had or maintained in the slave States. You have 
seen how we have, in order to counteract the 
policy of our forefathers on the subject of slavery, 
surrendered in 1820 the State of Missouri and all 
that part of the Territory of Louisiana that lies 
south 36' 30' to slavery, and contented ourselves 
with saving to freedom what lay north of that 
line : and you have seen how, only forty years 
afterwards in order to counteract and entirely 
defeat the policy of the fathers in establishitig 
such institutions as those, we surrendered and 
gave up the whole of what we had saved in 1820, 
surrendering Kansas and the whole of our pos- 
sessions from one end of the continent to the 
other, to be made slave colonies and slave States, 
if slave owners could make them so, and agree- 
ing that we would receive them into the Union, 
as we had already for like considerations agreed 
to receive four slave States out of Texas, to the 
end that government might not continue to be. 
and develop itself to be, a government founded 
on the equality of man, but should be and 
remain forever a government founded on the 
principle of property in man. You have seen, 
fellov.' citizens, within the last thirty years, how 



the Congress of the United States, in order to 
defeat the great policy, has suppressed for a 
period of nearly ten years freedom of debate and 
the right of petition on the subject of slavery in 
the House of Representatives and in the Senate 
of the United States. You know now how the 
mails of the United States are subjected to es- 
pionage, to the end that any paper, or letter, or 
writing that shall argue for freedom againsu 
slavery, shall be abstracted and withdrawn, in 
order to fortify the power of slavery. You have 
seen the federal government connive and co- 
operate and combine with the slave party in en- 
deavoring to force slavery on the people of 
Kansas when they had refused to accept it. If 
you have seen all these things done, I am sorry 
to say that most of you have, at soiue time in 
your lives, given your consent that they should 
be done. The American people have consented 
to all this action of their own government to 
counteract and subvert the very principles of 
freedom established by the constitution. 

Now, since all this has been done, let us see 
what is the result after all — what advantage has 
slavery got, and what has freedom lost, while we 
have for forty years given our free consent that 
freedom should be stripped of everything and 
that slavery should be invested with all power. 
Why, they have arrested the march of emanci- 
pation at the line of Pennsylvania, and have 
left the ancient slavery still existing in Delaware, 
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Caro- 
lina and Georgia ; and they have added to them 
some five or six slave States in the southwestern 
angle of the Ohio and the Mississippi. That is 
all that they have done. And on the other hand, 
this great vital principle of the republic, this 
principle of freedom and equality, what has it not 
done 1 It has abolished slavery in seven of the 
original states, and has produced new and strong 
and most vigorous and virtuous Slates all along 
the shores of the great lakes and across to the 
valley of the Mississippi, and it has established 
freedom beyond the power of being overthrown 
on the coasts of the Pacific Ocean. 

Certainly, since we can lay so little claim to 
having produced these results by our own work, 
or wisdom, or virtue, what could it have been hut 
that (yverriding Power ^ which, by its higher law, 
controls even the perverse wills of men. arid which 
means that this shall be, henceforth and forever, as 
it was established in the beginning, a land, not of 
slavery, bat aland cf freedom. (Cheers.) Fellow 
citizens, either in one way or the other, whether 
you agree with me in attributing it to the interposi- 
tion of Divine Providence or not, this battle has 
been fought, this victory has been icon. Slavery 
to-day is, for the first time not only powerless, but 
without influence in the American republic. The 
serried ranks of party after party, which rallied 
under it to sustain and support it, are broken and 
dissolved under the pressure of the march — the 
great and powerful march-of the American people 
determined to restore freedom to its original and 
Just position in the goverimient. For the first lime 
in the history of the United States, no man in a 
free State can he bribed to vote for slavery. The 
government of the United States has not the 
power to make good a bribe or a seduction by 
which to make and convert Democrats to support 
slavery. (Applause.) For the first t^me m the 
history of the republic the slave power has not 
even the power to terrify or alarm the freeman so 



15 



as to make him submit, and scheme, and cmn- 
cide, and compromise. It rails now with a feeble 
voice, as it tliunclered in our ears for twenty or 
thirty years past. With a feeble and mnttei ins; 
voice they cry out that they will tear the Union 
to pieces. (Derisive laushter.) Who's nfaid? 
(Laughter and cries of " No one ! ") They com- 
plain that if we will not surrender our principles, 
and our system, and our riglit — being a major- 
ity — to rule, and if we will not accept their 
system, and such rulers as they will give us, they 
will go out of the Union. Who's afraid 1 
(Laughter.) Nobody^s afraid; nobodij can be 
bought. 

Now, fellow citizens, let me ask you, since you 
are so prompt at answering — suppose at any time 
within the last forty years we could have found 
American people in the free States everywhere 
just as they are everywhere in the free States 
now — in such a condition that there was no 
party that could be bought, nobody that could 
be scared — how much sooner do" you think this 
revolution would have come, in which wc are 
now engaged 1 I do not believe there has been 
one day since 1787 until now when Slavery had 
any power in this government, except what it 
derived from buying up men of weak virtue, no 
princi|)le and great cupidity, and terrifying men 
of weak nerve in the free States. (Laughter and 
applause.) And now I come to ask what has 
made this great political change 1 How is it that 
the American people, who, only ten years ago, 
said, " Take part, take all" — who only six years 
ago, said, " Take Kansas, carry slavery over it," 
wlio when the tears of the widows and the blood 
of the v.i.artyrs of liberty cried out from the 
pround and appealed to them for aid and help, 
and sympathy, said, " Let Kansas shriek ; " liow 
is it that in tiie space of six years you have all 
become — the whole people of the North and of 
the Northwest, the whole people of the free 
8tates — have become all at once so honest that 
none of them can be bought, so brave that none 
of them can be scared '? I \vill tell you. Theor- 
ists and visionaries on the Atlantic coast, who of 
all men in the world were safest from the inva- 
sion of slavery and had least to suffer from it, 
n-hile these prairies and fields and wildernesses 
n'ere as yet being filled up and organized, could 
not i)c convinced of the imminence of the danger. 
It has been next to impossible to convince the 
man who lives on the sidewalk of an Atlantic 
city, or even the farmer in his field, who lives in 
Ontario, or Cayuga, or Berks, or in any of the 
counties of the Eastern States, that it wasamat- 
ter of very great consequence to him, whether 
slaves or freemen constitute the people — the 
ruling power of the new States. But just in the 
right moment, when the battle was as good as 
lost, the emigration from the Eastern States and 
from the Old World, into Michigan, and Wiscon- 
sin, and Minnesota and Iowa, rose up in the exer- 
cise and enjoyment of that freedom which had 
been saved to them by the ordinance of 1787, 
and appieciating its value and importance, and 
ieeling, every man for himself, that he neither 
would be a slave, nor make a slave, nor own a 
slave, nor allow any particular man to make or 
buy, or own a slave within the stale to which 
they belonged, they came like Biucher to the 
rescue, and the field of Waterloo was won. The 
Northwest has vindicated the wisdom of the 
statesmen of 1787, and tho virtue of the Ameri- 



can people ; and now since you were so deler- 
niined that slavery .should be arrested and tli:it 
freedom should henceforth be national and sla- 
very only sectional, we of the Atlaitic States aro 
becoming just as honest and just as brave as yoa 
are. (Ap[)lau-<e.) 

Fellow citizens, I must not be mis-interpi-etcd. 
I have said that this battle was fouglit, an(i this 
victory won, I said so four years ago in tho 
Senate of the United States, and perlia[)'< I wan 
tliouglit to have thereby, instead of 'encnui'iigin^ 
the great army of freedon; to consumniate it.i 
triumph, tended to demoralize its energies. I 
knew better, I knew that men woiked ail the 
better, and are all the braver when they havo 
hope and confidence of success and tiiuniph, iii- 
stead of acting under the influence of despond- 
ency and despair. This battle is fought and this 
victory is won, provided that you stand deter- 
mined to maintain the great Rei)uhlican party 
under its great and glorious leader, Abi'ahnni 
Lincoln, in inaugurating its principles into tho 
administration of the government, and pi-ovided 
you stand by him in his administration, if it shall 
be, as I trust it shall, a wise and just, and good 
one, until the adversary shall find out that he has 
been beaten and shall voluntarily retire from the 
field. (Applause.) 

A voice — " We'll do it." 

Unless you do that, there is still danger that 
all that has been gained may be lost. There is 
one danger remaining — one only. Slavery can 
never now force itself or be forced from tiie 
stock that exists among us, into the territoiies 
of the United States. But the cupidity of trade 
and the ambition of those wh-.>:-e iiitcre.-ts aro 
identified with slavery, are such that tliey may 
clandestinely and surreptiti(nisly reopen, cither 
within the forms of la*v or wiiliout them, tho 
African slave trade, and may bring in new car- 
goes of African slaves at SlOO a head ami scat- 
ter them into the Territories ; and, once getting 
pos.session of new territory, they may again o[)o- 
rate on the cupidity or the patriotism of tho 
American peo})le. 

Therefore it is that I enjoin upon you all to re- 
gard yourselves as men, who, although yon have 
achieved the victory and are entitled even now, 
it seems, to laurels, have enlisted for the war 
and for your natural lives. You are committed 
to maintain this great policy until it shall havo 
been so firmly reinstated in the administrntion 
of the government, and so firmly established 
in the hearts, and wills, and affections of the 
American people, that there shall never be again 
a demoralization from this great work. Wc look 
to you of the Northwest. Whether this is to b(5_ 
a land of slavery or of freedom, the people of 
the Northwest are to be the arbitratois of its 
destiny. The virtue that is to save this niition 
must reside in the Northwest, for the simple I'oa- 
son that it is not the people who live on the siile- 
walks, and who deal in merchandise on the Atlan- 
tic or the Pacific coasts, that exercise the power 
of government, of sovereignty, in the United 
States. The political power of the United Siates 
resides in the owners of the lands of (he U:uted 
States. The owners of workshops and of the 
banks are in the East, and the owners of the gold 
mines are in the far West ; but the ownc s of the 
land of the United States are to be found ;ilong 
the shores of the Mississippi river, fV' ni \'cw 
Orleans to the sources of the great rivo;.> iiw I tho 



16 



great lakes. On both sides of this stream are 
the people who hold in their hands the destinies 
of the republic. I have been asked by many of 
you what I tliink of Minnesota. I will not en- 
large further than to say that Minnesota must 
be eitlier a great State or a mean one, just as 
her people shall have wisdom and virtue to 
decide. 

That some great states are to be built up in the 
valley of the Mississippi, I know. You will no 
longer hear hereafter of the " Old Dominion " 
state; dominion has passed away from Virginia 
long ago. Pennsylvania is no longer the key- 
stone of the American Union, for the arch has 
been extended from the Atlantic coast to the 
Pacific Ocean, and the center of the arch is 
moved westward. A new keystone is to be 
built in that arch. New York will cease to be 
the Empire State, and a new Empire State will 



grow up in a northern latitude, where the lands 
are rich, and where the people who cultivate 
them are all free and all equal. That state which 
shall be truest to the great fundamental priiicii)le 
of the government — that state which shall be 
most faithful, most vigorous in developing and 
perfecting society on this principle — will be at 
once the new Dominion State, the new Keystone 
State, the new Empire State. (Applause.) If 
there is any state in the Northwest that has been 
kinder to me than the State of Minnesota, and 
if such a consideration could influence me, then 
I might perhaps have a feeling of emulation for 
some other state. I will only say, that every 
man who has an honest heart and a clear head 
can see that these proud distinctions arc within 
the grasp of the people of Minnesota, and every 
generous heart will be willing to give her a fair 
chance to secure them. (Loud Applause.) 



iltc If (Sit: lis Biisim m\A its Mntv. 



s 



SPEECH 



DELIVERED BY 




. SEWARD, 



AT 



DUBUQUE, SEPTEMBER 21, 1860. 



Fellow Citizens: He who could pass down 
the Mississippi, as it washes the shores of Iowa, 
and see tlie accumulated products of the harvest, 
waiting, under all changes of the weather, for 
means of transport to the eastern markets, and 
thence for distribution to the needy in every part 
of the globe, and be unmoved, must be an 
enemy of his race. He who could enter this, the 
principal seaport of the State, witness the signs 
of activity and thrift which appear on all sides, 
ascend the hills which overlook the town and 
river, and see the rich and useful minerals every- 
where and on every side extracted from the 
bosom of the earth and sent abroad to perform 
their part in the service of mankind, must be 
incapable of appreciating the elements of a great 
and prosperous people. 

I have seen, as have my fellow travelers, this 
exhibition ; and it may be not unpleasing to you 
to know the results of the observations we have 
made. It is that, although this town and State 
were stimulated to a high degree of activity, and 
to a very rapid process of development by the 
great tide of capital and emigration from the 
east, which was arrested in the revulsion of 1857, 
yet the basis of tlie prosperity of this city and 
State is sure and steadfast ; the blood, after such 
increased activity in searching the distant parts 
of our great system, must needs return to the 
heart again in the East from which it flowed. 
But so long as a great nation like this remains at 
peace, the blood is not long in filling up again 
the storehouse of the heart. Witliin a year or 
two *»r three, the prosperity of Dubuquo and of 
Iowa will be renewed. 



Fellow citizens, we were tempted by the com- 
mittee who accompanied us to the heights which 
overlook the city, and who took us for politicians 
of a different class — we were tempted with the 
display before us. Here, they said, at your feet 
lie three States, Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois — 
enough,_^they thought, to tempt ambitious poli- 
ticians as they supposed us to be. I answered 
that the States which were desired by Northern 
politicians during my connection with public 
service, had been no such States as these which 
produce wheat, and corn and lead ; but they were 
States which lay further down the valley of the 
Mississippi ; the nearer the Gulf of Mexico the 
better. And my respected friend from Massa- 
chusetts remarked that they didn't seem to know 
what constitutes a State in the esteem of a north- 
ern politician ; it is negroes that constitute the 
State — politicians want slaves, and you have none 
to offer. 

Fellow citizens, we in the East are interested 
in your success, in your prosperity, in your ag- 
grandizement, for we in the East are but the con- 
sumers and the manufacturers and the sellers of 
what you create. AVe should soon languish and 
die if production were to cease in the valley of 
the Mississippi, Nor, perhaps, is it necessary to 
add, are you independent of us, for you are 
charged with the responsibility of supplying the 
materials of men and women, and of men for the 
defense of the liberties of this nation and its 
welfare. And if we of the East are feeble and 
imbecile, you in the West will languish and come 
down to the same common ruin with ourselves. 
It is therefore that we propose to speak to you 



18 



on this occasion of what concerns us all ; a great 
political quesiioii, which is to bo the subject of 
decision by the American people in the coming 
canvass. 

We who have come here from the East saj' that 
the national policy for the last forty years on the 
subject has been erroneous, false, and lends to 
ruin, and that it must be reversed. Tliat policy 
simply, tersely stated is this : The policy of the 
Federal gcvernment has been to extend and for- 
iifij African slave labor in the United States. 

Now let there be no cavil on this point, for 
many who have maintained the administration 
and the party who have carried out this jjolicy, 
have been unconscious, doubtless, of the nature of 
the policy they maintained. But it is not a subject 
of dispute or cavil what has been the policy of the 
government of the country for forty years. I will 
give but one illustration. No man in the nation 
would have objected or could have objected to the 
admission of Texas into the Federal Union provid- 
ed it had been a free state. No man who objected 
could have objected but for the reason that she 
was not a slave state. When the question of an- 
nexing Texas tried all the existini{ parties, and 
puzzled, bewildered, and confounded tlie states- 
men of tlie country, the question was finally 
decided, in a short and simple way, by the de- 
claration of the administration of John Tyler, 
made by Mr. Calhoun, his Secretary of State, 
that Texas must be annexed because it was a 
slaveliolding country — it must be annexed with 
the condition of subdividing it into four slave 
states. Texas must be annexed for the {)ui-po.se 
of foitifying and defending the institution of 
slavery in the United States. This one single 
fact irpon which the parlies joined issire, is con- 
clusive. I will not go further in sliowing that 
that has been the policy of the country for forty 
years. 

Now I have said that it is our proposition to 
reverse this policy. Our policy, stated as simply 
as I have stated that of our adversaries, is, to 
circurascribe slavery, and to fortify and extend 
free labm- or freedon. Many |)re]iminary objec- 
tions are raised by those among you and us, who 
are not prepared to go with us to the acceptance 
of tliis issue. They say that they are tired of a 
hobby and of men of one idea; that the country 
is too great a country, and has too many interests 
to be occupied with one idea alone; besides that 
it is repulsive, offensive, it is disgusting to have 
*' this eternal negro question " forever forced 
upon their consideration when they desire to 
think of white men and other things. It is well, 
perhaps, to remove these preliminary objections 
before we go into an argument. 

Now, granting for a moment that there is wis- 
dom in the objection to entertain this eternal 
negro question, pray, let us ask, who raised, 
who has kept np this eternal negro question 1 

The negro question was put at rest in 1787 by 
the fatliers of the Republic, and it slept, leaving 
only for moralists and humanitarians tlie ques- 
tion of emancipation, a question within the 
States, and by no means a federal question. Who 
lifted it up from the States into the area of fede- 
ral politics 1 Who but the slaveholders, in 1820 1 
They demanded that not only Missouri should be 
admitted as a slave State, located within the 
Louisiana purchase ; but that slavery should be 
declared forever and was forever without de- 
claration of law, established and should prevail 



until the end of time, in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, 
and in every foot of the then newly acquired do- 
main of the United States 1 It was tiie slave- 
holding power which raised the negro question, 
and it was tlie Democratic party which made an 
alliance with that power, and which, in the 
North and in Congress, raited this very offensive 
question, tins so very offensive legislation about 
negroes instead of legislation about white men. 

The question was put at rest by the compro- 
mise of 1820, when, God be praised, Iowa, Kan- 
sas and Nebraska were saved for freedom, and 
only Arkansas and Missouri, out of the Louisiana 
purchase, surrendered to slavery ; and it sleiit 
again for fifteen or twenty years, and then the 
negro question was again introduced into the 
councils of the Federal government — and by 
\vhom1 By the slave power, when it said that 
"since you have taken Iowa, Kansas and Ne- 
braska, and left us only Missouri, Arkansas and 
Florida, out of our newly acquired possessions, 
you must now go on and annex Texas, so that we 
shall have a balance and counterpoise in this 
government." Then tlie Democratic party again 
were seized with a sudden desire to extend the 
area of slavery along the Gulf of Mexico; and 
by way of balancing the triumph of liberty so 
as to hang manacles and chains on the claws of 
the conquering eagle of the country ! 

Who, then, is responsible for tiie eternal negro 
question 1 Still such Avas the forbearance, the 
patience, the hope witliout reason and witliout 
justice, of the friends of freedom throughout tlie 
United States, that the eternal negro question 
would have been at rest then, if it had not again 
been brought forward into the Federal councils 
in the years 1848 and 1850, when the slave power 
forced us into a war with Mexico by which we 
acquired Upper California and New Mexico, and 
for no other purpose but that, notwithstanding 
all the advantages which slavery had gained 
since the Atlantic States were free, now, as a 
balance, slavery must have the Pacific coast, and 
so keep up the equilibrium (according to the 
notions of Mr Calhoun) between free labor and 
slave labor or between freedom and slavery in 
the United StatjDs. 

Thus, on these three different occasions, when 
the public mind was at rest on the subject of the 
negro, the slave power forced it upon public con- 
sideration and demanded aggressive action. When 
they had at last secured the consent of the peo- 
ple of the free States to a compromise in 1850, 
by which it was agreed that California alone 
might be free, and that New Mexico should be 
remanded back into a territorial condition be- 
cause she had not established slavery — then tliero 
was but one man in the United States Senate 
that would vote to accept New Mexico as a Free 
State when she came with her constitution in her 
hands ; and that man the humble individual who 
stands before you. [Cheers.] Aye, you applaud 
me for it now; but where were your votes in 
1850 ? Ah ! well ; it is all past. 

When they had agreed on a compromise, and 
had driven out of the Senate every man hut my- 
self and some half dozen other representatives 
who had opposed the aggressions of slavery, 
were they content to let the negro question lestl 
No, but in 185i the Democracy raised the negro 
question to force it finally and forever through- 
out the whole Republic, by abrogating the M'is- 
souri Compromise. They abandoned the Terri- 



19 



lories of Kansas and Nebraska to slave labor, 
and actually assisted and cncouraE^ed the armies 
sent there by the slavchnldei's, to take foi-cible 
possessidii of territory wiiich, until then, had 
been fiee. 

0! what pleasure shall I have, in telling the 
people of Kansas, three days hence, bow that 
when all others were faithless, and false, and tim- 
id, they renewed this battle, this standard of free- 
dom, and expelled the intrudin2; slaveholder, 
and established forever amonjrst themselves the 
fieedora of labor and the freedom of men on the 
plains of Kansas. 

Were the Democracy then content? Not at 
all ; but they determined in 1858, to raise the 
negro question once more and to admit Kansas 
into the Union, if she would have come in as a 
Slave State, and to keep her out indefinitely if 
she should elect freedom. 

And only one year later, when they found that 
Kansas was slipping from their clutuhes, who 
jthen raised once more the eternal negro ques- 
tion ? The slave power and the administration 
took it up by demanding the annexation of 
Cuba, a slaveiiolding island of Spain, to be 
acquired at a cost of $150,000,000, peaceably, if 
it could be ob'ained for that sum, and forcibly if { 
it should not be surrendered, for the purpose of j 
adding two slave states, well manned and well I 
appointed, to balance the votes of Kansas and ■ 
Minnesota, then expected to come into the Union | 
as free states. i 

Wiio has brought this issue and entered it on ; 
the record of this canvass ? The slaveholding 
party — the Democratic party. They held their 
Convention first in this campaiijn at Charleston. 
They presented again the everlasting neijro ques- 
tion, nothing more, nothing less. They dif- 
fered about the form, but they gave us, never- 
theless, the everlasting negro question in two 
diiferent parts, giving us our choice to talce one 
or the other, as they gave the people of Kansas 
the choice, whether they would take slavery 
pure and simple, or take it anyhow and get rid 
of it afterwards if they could. 

Of one part, Mr. Breckinridge is the repre- 
sentative. It is presented plain and distinct; it 
is that slaves are merchandise and property in 
the territories under tlie Constitution of the 
United States, and that the national legislatures 
and the courts must protect it in the territories, 
and no power on earth can discharge them of 
the responsibility. Of the other, Mr. Douglas is 
tlie representative, and the form in which it is 
presented by those who support liim is. What is 
the best way not to keep slavery out of the ter- 
ritories. 

I doubt very much wlrether slaveholders have 
so ftreat a repugnance to the ne^ro and to the 
eternal ne^ro question as they affect. On the 
other hand, being accustomed to sit in the Fed- 
eral councils, with ^rave and reverend Senators. 
and to mingle with representatives of the people 
from slaveholding States, I find a great difference 
between myself and them on the subject. God 
knows, I never would consent to be the unbid- 
den, the unchosen Representative of bond.nen ! 
They must be freemen that I represent ; every 
man of them must be a whole man. But my 
respected friends who r<;present the slave States 
are willing, and do most cheerfully, most gladly 
consent to represent three-fifths of all the negro 



slaves. They take a slave at three-fifths of a 
man, and they represent the three-fiftlis ; I doubt 
not thfy would be very glad if he could be cre- 
ated int ) five-filths. 

Well I think the Democratic party has not so 
much repugnance to negroes and the negro ques- 
tion, because tliey consent to take ottices of Pres- 
ident, Vice-President, Secretary of State, Minis- 
ters to Bogota, and to all other parts of the world, 
(Consulships and post offices, that are derived 
indirectly by adding another link to the ciiain of 
States in which negroes count, each one, three- 
fifths. No, no ; slaveholders and the Democratic 
party would be very glad to take votes from ne- 
groes, free or slave, by the bead, full c<mnt, if 
negroes and slaes would only vote for Slavery ; 
and^it is only because they have a sagacious in- 
sight into human nature, which teaches them 
that negroes and slaves would vote for libeity, 
that makes the negro question so repulsive lo 
them. 

But, fellow citizens, is this one idea, the eter- 
nal negro question, so objectionable merely on 
account of the negro ? I think not : I tliiidt it 
far otherwise ; for after all, you see that the ne- 
gro has the least of everybody else in the world, 
to do with it. The negro is no party to it ; he is 
only an incident; he is a subject of disiJutes 
but not one of the litigants. He has just as much 
to do with it as a horse or a watch in a justice's 
court, when two neighbors are litigating about 
its ownership. The horse question or watch 
question is excellent business for the justice, 
and lawyers to make fees, and for th§ neighbors 
generally to get fun out of; and my friend Gen- 
eral Nye was never so happy in his life as when 
attending suits befoi'e justices of the peace, set- 
tling this eternal horse question and watch ques- 
tion. (Laughter.) 

The controversy is not with the negro at all, 
but with two classes of white men, one who have 
a monopoly of negroes, and the other who have 
no negroes. One is an aristocratic class, that 
wants to e.Ktend itself over the new territories 
and so retain the power it already exerci.ses ; and 
the other is yourselves, my good friends, men 
who have no negroes and won't have any, and 
who mean that the aristocratic system shall not be 
extended. There is no negro question about it 
at all. Itis an eternal question between classes — 
between the few piivileged and the many un- 
privileged—the eternal question between aris- 
tocracy and democracy. 

A sorrowfid world this will be when that ques- 
tion shall be put to rest ; for when it is, the rest 
that it shall have, shall be the same it has always 
had for six thousand j'ears ; the riding of the 
privileged over the tiecks of the unprivileged, 
booted and spurred. And the nation that is 
willing to establish such an aristocracy, and is 
shamed out of the defense of its own lights, 
deserves no better fate than that which befalls 
the timid, the cowardly and the unworthy. 

It is to-day in the United S'ates the same 
question that is filling Hungary, and is lilting 
tie throne of a Caesar of Austi-ia from its pedes- 
tals ; the same which has expelled the tyrant of 
Naples from the beautiful Sicily, and has driven 
him from his palace at Naples to seek shelter 
in his fortress at Gaeta. It is not only an eternal 
question, but it is a universal question. Every 
man from a foreign laud will find here in Ame- 



20 



rica, in' another form, the irrepressible conflict 
(Applause) which crushed liim out, an exile 
from his native land. 

Again, fellow citizens, I am not quite con- 
Tinced that it is sound philosophy in anything, 
at least in politics, to banish the principle of 
giving paramount importance at any one time to 
one idea. If a man wishes to secure a good crop 
of wheat to pay off the debt lie owes upon his 
land, he is seized with one idea in the spring ; 
he plows, plants and sows ; he gathers and reaps, 
with a single leading idea of getting forty bushels 
to the acre, if he can. If a merchant wishes to be 
successful, he surrenders himself to the one idea 
of buying as cheap, and selling as dear as he 
honestly can. I would not give much for a law- 
yer who is put in charge of my case, that would 
suffer himself, when before the jury, to be 
distracted with a great many pleasing ideas. 
I want one devoted to my cause In the 
church we have a great many clergymen who 
have a horror of this one idea and the negro ques- 
tion, but I think it was St. Peter who had it 
made known to him in a vision on the housetop, 
that he must not have scattered ideas ; but there 
was to be but one idea only, that was of being satis- 
fied with everything else, provided he could only 
win souls to his Master. And Paul was very much 
after this spirit ; he said he would be all things 
to all men, provided he could save some souls. 

There was in the Revolution one man seized 
with a terrible fanaticism, propelled by one idea. 
He scattered terror all through this continent ; 
and when he passed from Boston to tlie first 
Congress in' Philadelphia, deiuitations from New 
York and Philadelphia went out to meet and dis- 
suade this man of one idea, namely, that of na- 
tional independence. And still John Adams 
proved, after all, to be a public benefactor. 
There was, during the Ilevolution, another man 
of one idea that appeared to burn in him so ar- 
dently that he was regarded as the most danger- 
ous man on the continent ; and a triple reward 
was oflered for his head. He actually went so 
far as to take all the men of one idea in the 
country, and suffer himself to take command of 
them. That man was George Washington. His 
idea was justice, political justice. Tliere was 
another monomaniac of tlie same kind down in 
Virginia ; he, at the close of the Revolution, had 
one idea,' an eternal idea, and it even included 
negroes ; and that was the idea of equality. It 
was Thomas Jefferson. Now, though the State 
which reared him might be glad it it could erase 
from his monument at Mcnticello its sublime in- 
scription, yet the world can never lose that proud 
and beautiful epitaph, written by himself : 
" Here lies Thomas Jefferson, the author of the 
Declaration of Independence " 

About the year 1805 or iSOG, the French Sec- 
retary for Foreign Affairs gave a dinner to the 
American representative at Court, and to Ameri- 
can citizens resident there, and there was a large 
and various party. When the wine llowed free- 
ly, and conversation ought to have been general, 
there was one young man who was possessed with 
one idea, and he could not rest, but kept con- 
tinually putting this ideabefbre the minister and 
the rest of the guests, saying, '• If you will only 
make up for nie a purse, or show me a bank that 
-will lend me five thousand dollars, I will put a 
boat on the Hudson river wluch will nuike the 
passage from New York to Albany at four miles 



an hour, without being driven by oars or sails." 
He was an offensive monomaniac, that Robert 
Fulton. But still, had it not been for his one 
idea, Iowa would have slept the last sixty years, 
and down to the twentieth century, and not one 
human being before me or within the boundaries 
of this State would have resided here. What I 
understand by one idea is this : It simply means 
that a man, or a people, or a State, is in earnest. 
They get an idea which they think is useful, and 
they are in earnest. God save us when we are to 
abandon confidence in earnest men and lake to 
following trivial men of light minds, confused 
and scattered ideas, and weak purposes. 

Fellow citizens, there is no such thing as gov- 
ernment carried out without the intervention, 
the rising, the exaltation of one idea, and with- 
out the activity, guidance and influence of ear- 
nest men. You may be listless, indifferent, in- 
dolent each one of you ; do you therefore get 
other fieople to go to sleep ? No. You go t - 
.■^leep, and you will find somebody that has g( 
one idea that you don't like, who will be widi' 
awake. They want to be wide awake on th 
negro question as long as it pays, and it pay 
just as long as you will be content to follow thei 
guidance and take several ideas 

Fellow citizens, industry is the result of om 
idea. I have never heard of idle ones in th( 
beaver's camp, but I do know there are drone; 
in the'beehive. Nevertheless, the beaver's cami 
and the beehive all give evidence of the domina- 
tion of one idea. The Almighty Power himseli 
could never have made the world, and nevei 
govern it, if he had not bent the force and appli- 
cation of the one idea to make it perfect. And 
when at 7 o'clock in the morning, three months 
ago, with the almanac in my hand, I stood with 
my .smoked glass between me and the sun to see 
whether the almanac maker was correct or whe- 
ther nature vascillated between one idea and an- 
other, I was astonished to see that, at the very 
second of time indicated by the astronomer, the 
shadow of the moon entered the disk of the sun. 
There was one idea only in the mind of the Om- 
nipotent Creator that, six thousand, or ten thou- 
sand, or twenty thousand, or hundreds of thou- 
sands of years ago, set that sun, that moon, and 
this earth in their places, and subjected them to 
laws which brought that shadow exactly at this 
point at that instant of time. Earth is serious ; 
heaven is serious ; earth is earnest ; heaven is 
earnest. There is no place for men of scattered 
and confused ideas in the earth below, or in the 
heavens above, whatever there may be iu places 
under the earth. 

Every one idea has its negative. It has its des- 
tinies, its purpose, and it has its negative. So it 
is with the idea of slavery ; it means nothing 
less, nothing more, nothing different from the 
extension of commerce or trading in slaves ; and 
in our national system it means the extension of 
commerce in slaves into regions where that com- 
merce has no right to exist The negative of 
that is our right which we are endeavoiing to in- 
culcate in your minds, opposition to trading in 
slaves within those portions of the Tenitory 
where slaves are not lawfully a subject of mer- 
chandi.>ie. 

At the time of the compromise of 1S20 the 

Democratic paity saw, for they are wise men, and 

their opponent.-;, Rufus King, John W. Tayloi 

I and others iu Congress, saw, that there was 



21 



an iiTepvessible conflict between the two ideas of 
sin very and tVeedoni, or rather between the two 
sides of one idea. Tlie alternative ofiered to the 
Democracy and to all the people of the United 
States, was a jilain one; the slaveholders are 
stiong, are united; there are many slave States 
and they are agreed in their policy ; there are as 
many free States, but they are divided in oi)inioii. 
Lend your support to the slave States and you 
shall have - the power, jjatronase, honors and 
glory of administei ing tiie govenunent of the 
Uniled States. Some asked, for how long? Whe 
men cast the horoscope and said forty years ; 
just about that time an infant State shall grow 
up north of Missouri within the Louisiana pur- 
chase, and another shall grow up in Kansas. 
Tliese forty years the great men I have named 
seemed few and feeble in numbers; still they 
would rather have quiet consciences during all 
the time and postpone honors and rewards for 
forty years, rather than to take the side of slavery ; 
and the Democratic party reasoning otherwise, 
said, "Give us the offices and power now; we 
~ill hold it the forty years and more if we 
m." 

They say that the "old one" is inexorable; 
lat when he makes a bond he lives up to it, but 
) hen the time is up he calls for his own. To 
! Ir. Breckinridge, Mr. Douglas, slave States and 
11, he says; "I have given you all the rope 
hat was allowed me to give you, now you must 
o." 

This, my young friends, for I see many such 
, .round me, brings me to a point where I can 
I five you one instruction which, if you practice 
! IS long as you live, may make at least some of 
70U gieat men, honorable men, useful men. Re- 
nember that all questions have two sides; one is 
.lie right side, and the other the wrong side; one 
is the side of justice, the other that of injustice; 
one the side of human nature, the otiier of crime. 
If you take the right side, the just side, ulti- 
mately men, however much they may oppose 
you and revile you; will come to your support; 
earth with all its powers will work with you and 
for you, and Heaven is pledged to conduct you 
to complete success. If you take the other side, 
there is no jiower in earth or heaven that can lead 
you tlirougii successfully, because it is appointed 
in the councils of heaven that justice, truth and 
reason alone can prevail. This instruction would 
be incom|)lete if I were not to add one other, 
that indifference between right and wrong is 
nothing else than taking the wrong side. The 
policy of a great leader of tiie Democratic party 
in the North is indifference ; it is nothing to hiin 
whether slavery is voted up or voted down in 
the Territoiies. Thus it makes no diflerence to 
that distinguished statesman whether slavery is 
voted up or voted down in the new States ; 
\vhether they all become slave States or free 
States. 

Let us see how this would have worked in the 
revolution. If Jefferson had been indifferent as 
to whether Congress voted up the Declaration of 
Independence or voted it down, what kind of n 
time would tliey have had with it. Patrick 
Henry would have been after him with a vigi- 
lance committee, and he would have no moiTu- 
ment over his remains. The British Government 
would have liked nothing better than a lot of 
sucii indifferent men for lenders of the American 
people, and George the Third and his dynasty . 



might have had rule over this continent for a 
thousand years to come. 

I have thus removed the preliminary objection 
always inter[)((sed on these occasions against 
the indulgence of the eternal negro question. 
What is the just and right national i)olicy with 
regard to slavery in the territories and in the 
new States of the Federal Union 1 and your de- 
cision of that subject \rill involve the considera- 
tion of what you consider to be the natural con- 
stituents of a state. 

1 suppose I may infer from your choosing this 
beautiful land on the western baidc of the Mis- 
sissipi)i that you all want to make Iowa a great 
and good state, a flourishing and prosperous state. 
You consider the development of the latent re- 
sources with which nature has supplied the re- 
giou on which you build a state, as one of the 
material things to be considered in building up 
a great state ; that is to say, you will have the 
forests subjugated and make them contribute the 
timber and lumber for the house, for the city, 
for the wharf, fm- the steamer, for the ship of 
war, and for all the i)urposesof civilized society. 
Then I think you will consider that if the land 
has concealed within it, deposits of iron, or lead, 
or coal, you will think of getting this out as 
rapidly as you can, so as to increase the public 
wealth. Tlien I tiiink that you will have the 
same idea about states everywhere else that you 
have about Iowa; and that your first idea about 
the way to make a state corres])onds with my 
idea to make a gieat nation. And as you W(uild 
subdue tiie forests, would develop the lead, iron 
and coal in your region ; as you would improve 
the fields, putting ten oxen to a plow to turn up 
the prairie, and then plant it with wheat and 
corn ; as you would encourage manufactures, 
and try, by making railways and telegraphs, to 
facilitate interchange of products ; it is exactly 
tins I propose to do for every new state like 
Iowa, tliat is to be admitted into the Federal 
Union. To be sure we shall leave the slave 
states, which are all in the Union, as they are ; 
our responsibilities are limited to the states 
which are yet to come into the Union, and we 
will apply our system to them. The first ques- 
tion, then, in making a state, is to favor the in- 
dustry of the people, and industry is favored 
in every land exactly as it is free and uncrip- 
pled. 

We are a great nation ; we have illimitable for- ( 
ests in the fiir East and on the banks of the up- 
per waters of tiie Mississippi, around the lakes 1 
and on the Pacific coast. No human arithmetic ' 
could compute the amount of materials of the' 
forest that have gone into the aggregnte of the i 
wealth which this nation possesses. At this day j 
there is not one foot of timber, not one foot of' 
dealboards, not a lath, not a shingle, entering in- ' 
to the commerce of the United Stales that is fab- 
ricated by a slave. 

You all have an idea, or had in the land from 
which you came here, of the value and import- 
ance of the fisheries, of making the ocean sur- 
render its treasures to nicrease the national 
wealth. The fisherman is seen in the winter time 
fishing for ice in the ponds and lakes of Massa- 
chusetts ; and if you go to Palestine or to Grand 
Cairo or to the furthest Indies, you will find your- 
self regaled with ice fished out of the lakes and 
ponds of Massachusetts. But ice is not a i)ro. 
duct that goes far to the support of human life ; 



22 



bnt can you tell me wliat portions of tlie eartli 
are liglited on tlieir way by niglit, at home in 
their cities, by tlie produce of Uieir fislieries? 
Have you any idea of liow nuicli tlie E'cat ma- 
chinery of the conntiy engaged in fabrication of 
goods and in navigation is indebted to tlie fisher- 
ies ? Those of llie United Stales are a great source 
of national wealth ; and a nursery of seamen for 
the ciinmercial marine and naval service of the 
United States, indispensable for the development, 
of the resources of a great people. Theie is not 
now and there n^ver was a laUe or liver, sea or 
bay, over ll;e whole world, from the Arctic to the 
Antarctic pole, a negro slave fisherman. 

You have been very indifferent about these 
subjects ; you have not taken notice of that. It 
was only two yeais ago, only by constant watcli- 
fulness and activity of the fiiendly repiesenfa- 
tivcs of the free States in Consress, that the 
whole protection of the United States was not 
withdrawn from the fisheries. The slaveholders 
don't want ice to be gathered with free soil 
bands ; they would rather have it taken from 
the lakes and rivers of Russia. They don't want 
the fisheries conducted by fiee hands; they 
would rather take tiieir supplies from foreign 
markets. The fislieries are somewhat foreign for 
you, but the quarries are not — the granite and 
the marble out of which our capitol is being con- 
structed, our great cities erected, some of it in 
your own beautiful city. Have you any idea of 
bow large a portion of the national wealth is ex- 
tracted fiom tlie quarries of granite and marble, 
and freestone 1 It is beyond any arithmetic to 
compute. Yet there is not a slave engnged in a 
quarry in the United States. Have you any 
slaves down your shafts in your lead mine here 1 
Not one. Have you any slaves in your coal 
mines 1 Not one. Any in your iron mines ? 
Not one. Pennsylvania is being burrowed all 
through and through in all directions, and tlie 
iron and coal taken out and fabricated. There is 
not a single slave, nor was there ever one, that 
raised his hand to add to that supply of national 
wealth. On the other hand, you have in Mary- 
land and ill Virginia deposits of coal and iron, as 
rich, aye, and of gold, too ; and yet in Maryland 
and Virginia, in their iron, coal, and silvermiues, 
the work is mainly done by freemen. 

I need not speak of manufactures ; the Afri- 
can slave is reduced to a brute, as nearly as may 
be, and he is incompetent to weave, to cast a 
shuttle, to turn a wheel, to grease or oil a wheel 
and keep it in motion. In all the vast manufac- 
turing establishments in the United States; in 
all the establishments of the forests and of the 
fisheries, or of manufactures throughout the 
whole world, there is not one African slave to be 
found. California rejected the labor of slaves, 
and well she did so; for if she had invited and 
courted it, her mines, instead of yielding fifty 
millions of g<dd i)er year to the commerce of the 
United States would be yielding nothing. 

Could a man subsist in Iowa by cultivating 
wheal or corn with slave labor 1 If not, they tell 
us this is a questioti altogether of economy, and 
that men have no idea of justice. No man has 
ever brought or ever thinks of bringing an 
African slave here; the reason is a moral one ; 
that slave labor don't pay, and only free labor 
will. 

Commerce is of two kinds, domestic and for- 
eign. The commerce down the Mississippi and 



up, commerce across the railroads with New 
Yoi'k, is domestic commerce; the commerco 
across the ocean with foreign nations, is the for- 
eign commerce. In New Orleans I f.mnd that 
sixteen thou.vand men were engaged in domestic 
trading on the river between New Orleans and 
the ui) cotuitiy in the Mississip[)i valley. How 
many of them were slaves 7 Not one. Oliio, In- 
dinnn, Illinois, Missouii, Kentucky, New York, 
Michigan, send the boatmen who conduct the 
Commerce even in slave States, while on all the 
oceans there is not a slave engaged in commerce. 

Now the three great wheels of national wealth 
are agriculture, including the subjugation of the 
forests, manufactures and trade. Slaves aie un- 
fit, Afiican slaves are absolutely unfit to be cm- 
ployed in tuiiiing either of those wheels; and it 
thus enters into the elements of a groat and pros- 
perous state that its people shall not be slaves 
but ficen;en. 

The reason is obvious ; it is the interest of the 
freeman to cultivate himself as Mell as he can, to 
produce the most he can, at the least cost ; and 
it is the interest of the slave to be as disqualified 
as he can, to consume as much as he can, and 
produce as little more than he consumes as pos- 
sible. 

It is not wealth alone that makes a nation. It 
must have strength and power to- command, by 
tlic mere signification of its will, peace and good 
order at home and respect and confidence abroad. 
Just imagine the United States converted into 
planting States in which the labor was performed 
only by negro slaves, and judge, if you can.wiiat 
would be the police power of the government in 
any of the States. The laborer in a slave State 
is watched night and morning ; his outgoings, his 
incomings, his path is surrounded by a police ; 
he can pass to execute the order of his master 
only on a permit or license. Why, he must re- 
tire to sleep at nine or ten at night, and must not 
be abroad from the plantation without a special 
license, for no other reason than, being held in 
involuntary bondage, his master regards him as 
an enemy to be watched. 

Turn a whole nation into masters watching 
slaves, and slaves regarded as natural enemies — 
what is the power of that nation to preseiTe 
peace at home ? What its power to command 
respect abroad 1 Make us for once a nation of 
slave States, and any feeble, worthless power in 
Europe has only to apply the torch of insurrec- 
tion and civil war by proposing to emancipate 
our slaves ; instead of relying on ourselves we 
would want lo make a fcdeia! union with Cana- 
da, that we might get protection, just as the free 
Slates now protect the slave States. 
" But all these — material wealth and power — are 
bnt low ideas of what coiistitnte a nation. It 
should have a head, an enlightened head; an 
open, free, manly, honest heart. Such will ena- 
ble any man or woman to go through the world 
with safety. A nation is only an aggregate of 
individuals, of so many heads to work as one 
liead; of so many hearts to work as one heart. 
You want an enlightened free people to consti- 
tute a nation ; and if you have such a people, 
they are perpetually reducing the labor, tlie sac- 
rifice, and toil of muscle ; and if it be true, as 
theohigians say, that labor is liie jirimal curse 
imposed by the Maker on man for disobedience, 
then this benevolent lieart and enlightened liead 
will suggest all manner of machines to relieve 



:i6 



tliem of the necessity of so much labor. The 
poor widow, who, to el;e out a subsistence, has 
to sew for lier neighbors, will, with a machine 
that costs but fioni fifty to one hundred dollars 
— the invention of a free people — make fifty gar- 
ments wlero before she made but one. And the 
steam engine — it ])lows, plants, sows and har- 
vests ; it threshes, it gathers into the granaries ; 
it hauls the cars loaded with produce ; it diives 
the steamboat on the river. Tliat is what inven- 
tion does. Now, out of the million inventions 
which the American people enjoy, there is not 
one that was made by a slave, and simply be- 
cause the slave is imbruted in his heart and stu- 
pified in his intellect. 

A nation to be great wants character — charac- 
ter for justice, honesty, integrity ; for ability to 
maintain its own rights and respect for the rights 
of others. That it cannot have, if it be a nation 
of slaves. It is only a nation of freemen that 
can cultivate the virtues which constitute a char- 
acter. These virtues are two: Justice, equal 
and exact justice among men ; the equal freedom 
and libeity of every other man. The other vir- 
tue is courase. Tlie freeman has no enemies ; 
he is just ; he oppresses nobody ; nobody wishes 
to be revenged u[)on him. A nation of freemen 
are safe ; they provoke nobody ; they wrong 
nobody ; they covet nothing ; they keep the 
tenth commandment. And nations must keep 
the commandments as well as individuals, or 
sutler the same jiena'ty. 

But you cannot hive tliose virtues except on 
one condition, and tiiat is that the people of the 
nation are tiained up in tliem. And how train- 
ed 1 By sciiools and general instruction, free 
press, free debate at home, and in legislative 
councils ; and everywhere to be undisturbed as 
they go in and come out. Introduce slavery iri 
Iowa, and what kind of freedom of speech would 
you enjoy t Wiiat kind of freedom of tlie press ? 
freedom of bridges 1 of taverns 1 Just look 
across tlie State of Missouri into Kansas, and 
you will find freedom of the i)ress, provided you 
will maintain that property is above labor, that 
slavery is before all constitutions and govern- 
ments — that freedom of speech which sought the 
expulsion of John Quincy Adams from the Con- 
gress of the United States, for presenting a peti- 
tion in favor of human rights ; the freedom of 
debate which arrested my distinguished and 
esteemed friend, Charles Sumner, in the midst of 
a glorious and useful career, and doomed him to 
wander a sutferer and invalid for four yeais. As 
for freedom of bridges, why the bridge over the 
Missouri at Kansas was proved to be only a 
bridge for slave State men; and the tavern at 
Lawrence was subverted for a nuisance on ac- 
count of its being a tavern at which free State 
men could stop. 

It is a bright September afternoon, and a 
strange feeling of surprise comes over me that 
I should be here in the State of Iowa — the State 
redeemed and saved in the compromise of 1820 — 
a State peojjled by freemen — that I should be 
here in such a State, before such a people, im- 
ploring the citizens of Iowa to maintain the 
cause of Freedom instead of the cause of Slavery. 
It is a strange change from the position I was in 
only a year ago. In Italy, in Austria, in Turkey 
even, I was excusing, in the best way I could, 
the monstrous delinquencies of the American 
people in tolerating slavery, which even the 



Turk had abrogated. You tell me that it is 
unnecessary ; that you are all right ; I happen to 
know better. That courtesy which I appreciate, 
suavity which I acknowledge, restricts some, 
many in this assembly from interrupting these 
remarks (thoush they are intended to be dis- 
respectful to nobody) as I have often been inter- 
rupted, with shouts of — "Hurrah for Douglas;" 
;ind yet, if I am right in what I have said, the 
Wide-Awakes are not up an hour too soon ; they 
do not sit up any too late o' nights ; tlieir zeal is 
not a bit too strong to save the State of Iowa 
tVijni giving her votes, in the present canvass, for 
a continuance of that administration which has 
for fotty years, made slavery the cardinal insti- 
tution, and freedom secondary to it in the Uni- 
ted States. There is something of excuse and 
apology for this ; it is in the reluctance which 
men who ate always opposed to one new idea 
coming in. have to give up the old idea, which 
they have so long cherished. The Democratic 
party has a wonderful affection for the name ; 
the pieslir/e of the Democratic parly ; and most 
of them, fellow citizens, must die unconverted. 
It is not in human nature that adult men and 
women chatise their opinions with facility ; it is 
little ones like these that grow up unobserved 
and unknown. Ten thousand of their votes 
enter into every successive canvass in the State 
of Iowa. 

In every State the great reformation which 
has been made within the last six years — for we 
date no further back than that — has been the 
(lying out of the one-idea men of Democracy 
and the gi owing up of the young one-idea men 
of Republicanism. And now why shall we not 
insist, so far as our votes shall be effective, that 
the territories shall remain free territories, so 
that new States which shall hereafter be added 
to this Union shall be Free States. 

They say we have no right to interfere in the 
slave States ; that we attack slavery in them. 
Not at all. We do not vote against slavery in 
Virginia. We do not authorize Abraham Lin- 
coln or the Congress of the United States to pass 
any laws about slavery in Virginia. We merely 
atithorize them to intervene in the Territories, 
and to pass laws securing freedom there. They 
tell us that it is unnecessary. They have rendered 
it neces.sary, because they have explained the 
laws and the constitution to establish slavery 
there, and we must either restrict slavery there 
or reverse the decision made by the federal tri- 
bunal. But they tell us that this is inconvenient ; 
it excites violence in the slave States. To which 
I answer that they have the choice between 
slavery and freedom as well as we ; but they 
must be content to leave it where it is. When 
they choose to carry slaves itito the Territories 
we interfere. What we are attacking is not 
slavery in the United Stat«s, but slavery in the 
Territories. 

But they tell us that we are suffering very 
great harm ; that our Southern fiiends, driven 
angry, will not, buy of us. Mayor Wood made 
the discovery that we are a trading jieople, and 
we shall lose our trade if the Repnblicati i)arty 
come into power. We are a trading peo))le as 
we are an eating people, a drinkittg people, a 
clothes wearing people. Trade ! trade ! trade ! 
the great character, the great employment, the 
one idea of the American people ! It is a libel. 
We buy only with what we produce. We buy 



24 



and sell, but tliat is merely incidental to our 
greater occui)ation of producing and making; 
and even tliese are subordinate to our great no- 
tion of educating and cultivating ourselves to 
make a great, virtuous and liappy people. Trade, 
however, for those who engage in it, knows no 
respect of opinion ; the southern planters will 
buy their cotton bagging of the men who will 
make it the cheapest, and they will insist on 
selling cotton to tlie Castle Garden committees 
and the Cooper Institute jiatriots at precisely the 
same piicc as they will to Wendell Pliillips and 
Frederick Douglas. They wont buy your wheat 
unless hungry for bread ; and if hungry for 
bread they will gladly 2'veyou for it any surplus 
of cotton you want. (Laughter.) 

Fellow citizens, I have refrained from advert- 
ing to tlie hiaher sentiments of humanity which 
enter into tlie consideration of this subject, be- 
cause those are considerations tliat are always 



with you. I will now say that the suggestions 
of justice are always in haimony with the sug- 
gestions and impulses of liumanity, and that 
both spring from the same source. Nature her- 
self seems to be forbearing ; she seems to be 
passive and silent. She lets nations as slie lets 
individuals go on in their course of actioli, vio- 
lating her laws ; but this is for a season only. 
Tlie time comes at last wlien Nature unerringly 
vindicates every right, and punishes every wrong, 
of tlie actions of men or states ; and when she 
does come we are punished. She comes in ter- 
ror, in revolution, in anarchy, in chaos. You 
will let this government and this nation slide 
down still further tlie smooth declivity if you 
choose; nature will bring it back again in due 
time with convulsions which will wake the sighs 
and groans of the civilized world. (Loud ap- 
plause.) 



GOVERISOR SEWARFS 

T?."EMAIIKS ON HIS IlEOEPTIOlSr AT MADISON, 
September 11, 1860. 



The reception of Gov. Seward here was more 
imposing than at any place on the route. Three 
Military Comi)anies, the Fire Dei)artment, the 
Turners and tlie Wide-Awakes, escorted him into 
the city. 

He was welcomed by the Governor and the 
Mayor. His reply was brief, and cliaiacterized 
by deep feeling. In the course of it, lie said : 

It has been by a simple rule of interpretation 
I have studied the Constitution of my country. 
Tliat rule has been simply thi^: Tliat by no 
word, no act, no combination into which I niiaht 
enter, should any one hunian being of all the 
generations to which I belong, much less any 
class of hunian beings of any nation, race, or kin- 
dred, be ojipressed and kept down in the least 
degree in their efforts to rise to a hialier state of 
liberty and happiness. [Ajiplaiise.] Amid all 
the glosses of the times, amid all tiie essays and 
discussions to which the Constitution of the Uni- 



ted States has been subjected, this has been the 
simple, p>ain, broad light in which I have read 
every article and every section of that great 
instrument. Wiieiiever it I'eqnires of me that this 
hand shall keejidown the humblest of the human 
race, then I will lay down power, place, jiosition, 
fame, everything rather tliau adopt such a con-, 
structioii of such a rule. [Applause] If, there- 
fore, in this land there are any wlio would rise, I 
say to them, in God's name, good speed ! If there 
are in f )reign lands peojde wlio would impiove 
their condition by emisivalion, or if there be any 
here who would go abroad in search of hajjpi- 
ness, in the improvement of their condition, or in 
their elevation toward a higher state of dignity 
and hnp))iness, they have always had, and they 
always shall liave, a cheering word and such 
efibrts as I can consistently make iu their behalf. 
[Applause.] 



Senator Seward's Western Tour, 



SPEECH 




OHIC^OO, OCTOBER 8, I860. 



Hail to the State of Illinois! whose iron roads 
form the spinal column of that system of internal 
continental trade wliicli suri)asses all the foreign 
conmierce of the country, and has no parallel or 
imitation in any otlior country on , the face of the 
globe 

Hail Cliicago 1 the heart which supplies life to 
this great system of railroads — Cliicago, the last 
and most wonderful of all the marvelous crea- 
tions fif civilization in North America. 

Hail to this council chamber of the, great Re- 
pu!)!ican party! justly adapted by iis vastness 
and its simplicity to its great purposes — the hall 
■where tiie representatives of freemen framed that 
creed of Republican faith, which carries healing 
for tiic relief of a disordeied nation. Woe 1 woe ! 
be to him wlio shall add to or shall subtract one 
word from that simple, sublime, truthful, benefi- 
cent creed. 

Hail to the Representatives of the Republican 
party, chosen here by the Republicans of the 
United States, and placed upon the platform of 
that creed. Happy shall he be who shall give 
them bis suffrage. If he be an old mai», he shall 
show the virtue of wisdom acquired by experi- 
ence; if lie be a young man, he shall in all his com- 
ing years, tell his fellow men wih pride, " I too 
voted for Abraham Lincoln." [Great aijplause] 

Fellow citizens, that Reimblican creed is, ne- 
vertheless, no partisan creed. It is a National 
faith, because it is the embodiment of the one 
life-sustaining, life-expanding idea of the Ameri- 
can r<'pul)lic. What is the idea more or less than 
simply this : That civilization is to be maintained 
and carried on ujion this continent by Federal 
Stlates, based upon tlie prineijiles of free soil, 
fiee labor, free speech, equal rights aud universal 
suffrage 1 [Loud api)lause.] 

Fellow citizens, this is no new idea. Tliis idea 
had its first utterance, and the boldest and clear- 



est of all the utterances it has ever received, in 
the very few words that were spoken by this na- 
tion when it came before the woild, took its 
place upon the stage of human action, and as- 
serting its independence in the fear of God, and 
in full confidence of the approval of mankind; 
declared that bencefoith it held those to be its 
enemies, who should oppose it in war, and those 
to be its friends who should maintain with it re- 
lations of peace. That utterance was e.xpicssed 
in these simple words : " We hold these truths to 
be self-evident — that all men are created equal, 
and have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness." This great national 
idea has been working out its fruits ever since. 
Its work is seen in the perfect acceptance of it 
by eighteen of the thirty-four States of the Union 
— or .seventeen of the thirty-three, if Knnsas is to 
bo considered out. It is asserting itself in the 
establishment of new States throughmit the 
West, as it has 'revolutionized and is revolution- 
izing all of Westein and Southern Europe. Why 
is this idea so effectived It is because it is 
the one chief living, burning, inextinguishable 
thought of human nature itself, entertained by 
man in every age and in every clime. 

Fellow citizens, this national idea works not 
unop])0sed. Every good and virtucms and bene- 
volent principle in nature has its antagonist, and 
this great national irlea works in perpetual oppo- 
sition — I mny be allowed to say in irrepressible 
conflict — [Prolonged applause] — with an errone- 
ous, a deceitful, a delu.^ive idea. Do you ask 
what that delusive idea is 1 It is the idea that 
civilization ought andean be effected on this con- 
tinent, through this form of federal Stales, bnsed 
on the ])rinciple of slave labor — of Africa*', slave 
labor, of une(iual rights and unequal representa- 
tion, resulting in unequal suffrage. 

[Here there was much tumult and confusion, 



26 



owing to effortg of those bej'ond tlie reach of his 
voice to hear, drowning tlie speaker's voice.] 

Fellow citizens: Can it he that this great creed 
of ours needs exposition or defense 1 It seems 
to me so evidently just and true that it requires 
no exposition and needs no defense. Ccrtainlj- 
in foreign countries it needs none. In Scotland, 
or France, or Germany, or Russia, on the shores 
of the Mediterranean, in Euro[)e, or in Asia, or 
in Africa, you will never find one human being 
who denies the truth and the justice of this na- 
tional idea of the equality of man. 

[Here the tumult became so great that the 
speaker was compelled to pause. Mr. Arnold 
coming forward, urged upon all to be as quiet as 
possible. Those who were out of reach of Mr. 
Seward's voice, and desired to hear other speak- 
ers, could do so at the various stands and at tlie 
Wigwam. He thought it must be very painful to 
ti'e distintruished speaker to witness such a dis- 
turbance.] 

Gov. Seward: Fellow citizens, do not sup- 
pose that this disturbance, which I know is in- 
voluntary on your part, gives me any pain what- 
ever. [Applause.] There is no pressure here 
■which an honest man need regret. I only regiet 
that I have not voice enouiih to reach the whole 
of this vast assembly, or even the twentieth part 
of it. I will proceed, trusting that something I 
may say will reach the ears of most of the assem- 
blage. As necessarily I must chanae my position 
as I speak to make you hear me, addressing first 
this side and then that, no one will, I fear, be 
able to preserve the connection of my remarks, 
except myself — and hois a very fortunate speaker 
who does that. [Laughter.] 

I was speaking of tliis national idea — that it 
needs no exposition anywhere. It is one of those 
propositions that when addressed to thoughtful 
men needs no explanation or defense. And why 
not? 

Here we can see for ourselves this mean and 
miserable rivulet of black African slavery, steal- 
ing along lurbid and muddy as it is drawn from 
its stagnant source in the slave States; we 
see that it is pestilential in the atmospheie it 
passes throuiih ; we can see how inadequate it 
is and unfit to irrigate a whole continent with 
the living waters of health and life ; we can see 
how it is that everything on its baidcs with- 
ers and droops; while on the other hand, we 
can al.so see this broad flood of free labor as it 
descends tlie mountain sides in torrents, and is 
gathered in rivers, increasing in volume and 
power, and spreading itself all abroad. We can 
well see by the effects it has already produced, 
how it irrigates and must continue to irrigate 
this whole continent; how every good and vir- 
tuous plant lives and bieathes by its su[)port. 
We see the magical fertility which results fiom 
its piesence, because it is around us and before 
us always. 

We sometimes, fellow citizens, hear an arsu- 
ment for a jiolitical propositifin made in this 
form: One offers to "lake a tiling to he done 
by the job." Let us imagine for a moment that 
there could be one man bold enough, great 
enough, and wise enougii to take " by the job" 
the work of establishing civilization over this 
bi"oad continent of North America. He would, 
of course, want to do it in the shortest time, at 
the cheapest expense, and in tlie best manner. 
Now, would such a man ever dream of im- 



porting African barbarians ; or of taking their 
children or descendants in this country to build 
n|) and people great Free States all over this 
land, from the Alleghany Mountains to the Pa- 
cific Ocean? Would lie not, on the contrary, 
accept, as the rightful, natural, healthful, and 
best joossible agency which he could select, the 
free labor of free men, the minds, the thonglit.s, 
the wills, the jiurposes, the ambitions of enliglit- 
ened freemen, such as we claim ourselves to be 1 
would he not receive all who claim to aid in 
such services as these whether they were born 
on this soil, or cradled in foreign lands'? 

I care not, fellow citizens, when reckless men 
say in the heat of debate, or under tlie influence 
of inteiest, jiassion or prejudice, that it is a mat- 
ter of indiflerence whether slavery shall per- 
vade the whole land, or a part of the land, and 
freedom the lesidue — that freedom and slavery 
may take their chances — that they " don't care 
whether slavery is voted up or down." There 
is no man who has an enlightened conscience 
who is indifferent on the subject of human bond- 
age. [Applause.] There is no man who is en- 
lightened and honest, who would not abate some 
considerable part of his worldly wealth, if he 
could thereby convert this land from a land 
cursed in whole or in part with slavery, into a 
land of equal and impartial liberty [cheers] ; 
and I will tell you how I know this : I know it, 
because every man demands freedom for him- 
self, and refuses to be a slave. No 'free man, 
who is a man, would consent to be a slave ; every 
slave who has any manhood in him, desires to be 
free ; no man who has an unperverted reason 
docs not lament, condemn and deplore the prac- 
tice of commerce in man. Tlie executi<iner is 
always odious, even though his task is neces- 
sary to the administration of justice. We turn 
with horror and disi;ust from him who wields 
the axe. So the slaveholder turns with disgust 
from the auctioneer who sells the man and wo- 
man whom he has reared and held in slavery, 
although he receives the profits of the sale into 
his own coffers. 

I know this national idea of ours is just and 
right for another reason; it is that in the whole 
history of society, human nature has never, 
never honored one man who reduced another man 
to bondage. The world is full of monuments in 
honor of men who have deliveVed their fellow 
men from slavery. 

Since this idea is self-cvidently just, and is of 
itself pure, jieaceable, ea.sy to be entreated and 
fidl of good works, will you tell me why it is 
that it ha« not been fully accepted by the Ameri- 
can people? Alas! that it should be so. Per- 
haps I can throw light on that by asking nnotlier 
question: Is not Clnistianity pure, ]>eaceable, 
gentle, easy to be entreated, and full of good 
works 1 and yet is not the church of Jesus 
Christ still a church militant? Alas! that it 
should be so. Christianity explains for her.self 
how it is that she is rejected of men. She says 
it is because men love darkness latherthaTi light, 
because their deeds are evil. I shall not say this 
in regard to the subject of freedom. I know 
better; I know lliat my countrymen love light — 
not darkness. They aie even in the stale and 
disposition of the Roman Governor, " almost 
thou persuadest me to be a Christian," and al- 
most the American jieople are persuaded to be 
Republican. [Cheers and laughter.] Why, then 



27 



are Ihey not altogether persnadedl The answer 
cannot be given without some reflection. It in- 
volves an examination of our national conduct 
and life. 

The reason whj' the country is oidy almost and 
not altogether persuaded to he Republican, is be- 
cause the national sense and juilgment have been 
perverted. We inherited slavery ; it is organized 
into our national life — into our forms of govern- 
ment. It exists among us, unsuspected in its 
evils, because we have become accustomed, 
tinough national habit, to endure and tolerate 
slavery. Tlie effect of this habit arising fiom 
the presence of slavery, is to produce a want of 
moral courage among the people and an indispo- 
sition to entertain and examine the subject. It 
is not, however, the fault of t.he people. This 
lack of moral courage is chiefly the fault of the 
political representatives of the people. In every 
district in the United States, and for every seat 
in Cmigress, the people might select men appa- 
rently as brave, as trnthtul, as fearle.ss and as 
firm as Owen Lovejoy. [A|>plause.] 

You may fill the halls of Congress with men 
from all the Free States who seem to be as relia- 
ble as Owen Lovejoy; but on the clangor of the 
slavery bngle in tlie'li^ll ihey begin to waver and 
fail. They- retire. They suffer themselves to be 
demoralized; and they return to demoralize the 
peoi)!e. Slavery never hesitates to raise the 
clangor of the trumpets to teriil'y the timid. 

Slavery has, too, another argument for the 
timid than terror; it is jjower. The concentra- 
tion of Slavery gives it a fearful political power. 
You know how long it has been the controlling 
power in the E.KPCUtive Department of the Gov- 
ernment. Slaveiy uses that ])0wer, as might be 
ex[)ected — to puniNh those who oppose it, to re- 
ward those who serve it. All representatives 
are naturally ambitious ; all rei)resentatives like 
fame ; if tliey do not like pecuniary lewards, 
they like the distinctions of place. They like to 
be popular. When the people are demoralized, 
he who is constant becomes ortensive and obnox- 
ious; he loses position and the i)arty chooses 
some other repiesentative who will be less obnox- 
ious. These demoralized representatives iiicul- 
cate among the people pernicious lessons and sus- 
tain themselves by adopting compromises. They 
coiupromise so far, if possible, as to save place 
and a show of principle ; they save themselves 
first, and let freedom take what remains. 

A commuinty thus demoralized by its repre- 
sentatives is fearful of considering the subject 
of Slavery at all. It does uot like to look back 
upon its record ; it does not dare to look forward 
to see what are to be the conseriuences of errors. 
It desires peace and quiet. We shall see in a 
xnoment what feaiful sacrifices have beeen made 
under the influence of this demoralization by the 
power of the government. 

The first act of demoralization was to surren- 
der the Territory of Arkansas and the Territory 
of Missouri to slavery, and also by implication 
all tire rest of the Territory of Louisiana ac- 
quired by purchase from France, that lay south 
of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north lati- 
tude. Take up your maps when you go liome, 
and see what a broad belt of country, lying 
south of that line, was surrendered, with the 
Slates of Missouri and Arkansas, to slavery. 
Next, under the influence of this same demo- 
ralization, the whole of the peninsula of Florida, 



acquired from Spain, was surrendered to sla- 
very, rendering it practically useless for all the 
national purposes for which it was acquired, 
making it a burden instead of a blessing, a dan- 
ger instead of a national safeguard in the Gulf 
of Mexico. 

Then Texas was surrendered to slavery and 
brought in with the gratuitcms agreement that 
foiu- slave States should be made out of that 
Territory. Next, in 1550, Utah and New Mexico 
were abandoned to slavery. After these events, 
following in quick succession, came the abroga- 
tion, in the year 1854, of the restriction con- 
tained in the Missouri Com|>romise, by which it 
had been stipulated th.at all north of thirty-six 
degrees thirty minutes, excepting the State of 
Missouri, should be dedicated to freedom That 
was abandoned to slavery to take it if she could 
get it; and the administration of the govern- 
ment of the United States, with scarcely a pro- 
test from the people, went on to favor its occu- 
pancy by Slavery. As a legitimate consequence 
came the refusal, on the part of the national 
government — for it was a practical refusal — to 
admit Kansas into the Union because she would 
not accept slavery. 

After this demoralization had been carried out 
in these measures, what right had the nation to 
be surprised when the President and the Su- 
preme Court at last pronounced that which in 
no previous year either of them would have 
dared to assert — that this Constitution of ours is 
not a Constitution of Liberty, but that it is a 
Constitution of human bondage ; that slavery is 
the noimal condition of the American people on 
each acre of the domain of the United States not 
organized into States — that is to say, that wher- 
ever this banner of ours, this star spangled ban- 
ner, whose glories we celebrate so highly — wher- 
ever tiiis banner floats over a national ship or a 
national Ten itory, there is a land, not of freedom, 
but of slavery 1 

Hence it has followed, that the nation up to 
1854 surrendered all the unoccupied portions of 
this coiuinent to Slavery, and thereby practically 
excluded freemen — because experience shows 
that when you have made a slave Territory, free- 
dom avoids it ; just as much as when you make 
i a fiee State, like Kansas, slavery disappears 
from it 

I have said that the country was demoralized 
by its jjolitical representatives ; but these politi- 
cal re[)resentatives have their agents. All men 
necessarily fall into some political party, and 
into some political ])aities and religious sects. 
To gain office in a political party and share its 
favors, when the nation was demoralized, it be- 
came necessary that the candidate should be 
tolerant of slavery. So religious sects were am- 
bitious to extend their ecclesiastical sway. The 
consequence was that year by year slavery had 
|)arty upon party; slavery had religious sect upon 
religious sect; church after church. But alas I 
until the dawn of that year freedom had no 
party and no religious sect throughout this whole 
country. 

A people who are demoralized are easilj' ope- 
rated ui)on; they aie easily kept jjcrsistently in 
the same erroneous habit which has demoralized 
them. The first agency for continunig to extend 
the power of slavery upon this continent, is that 
of alarm. Fears of all kinds are awakened in 
the public mind. The chief of them is the fear 



28 



of turbulence, of disorder, of civil commotions, 
and of civil war. The slaveholders in the Slave 
States very justly, and truthfully, and rightfully 
assume that slaves are the natural enemies of 
their masters; and, of course, tliafc slaves are 
insidious enemies of the Stale which holds them, 
or requires them to he held in bondage; that, in- 
sidious enemies are dangerous ; and, therefore, 
in every Slave State that has ever been founded 
in this country, a policy is established which 
suppresses freedom of speech and freedom of 
debate, so far as liberty needs advocates, while 
it extends the largest license of debate to those 
who advocate the interests of Slavery. This j 
lack of ficedom of speech and freedom of debate j 
is followed in Slave States by the necessary con- i 
sequence, that there is no freedom of suffrage. 
So that at the last Presidential election — the first 
when this question was ever distinctly brought 
before the American people — there were no Slave 
States in which a ballot-box was open for fiee- 
dom, or wherein free men might cast their ballots 
with safety. If one side only is allowed to vote 
in a State, it is very easy to see that that side 
must prevail. [Laughter and applause.] 

If the condition of civil society is such that 
voting is not to be done safely, few men will vote. 
Every man who wishes to express his choice is 
not expected to be a martyr. IMie world jjroduces 
but few men willing to be martyrs, my fi lends, 
and I am sorry to say they have not been very 
numerous in our day. Nearly one-half of the 
United States, then — that is, all the Slave States, 
are at once to be arrayed on the side of slavery ; 
and behold then ! they tell us that Republican- 
ism, which invites them to discuss the subject, is 
sectional, and they are national. But the Slave 
States are not willing to rest content with this 
exclusion of all freedom of suffrage, of speech 
and of debate on the subject of Slavery within 
their own jurisdiction, but they require the free 
States to accept the same system for themselves. 
They insist that although they may be able at 
home to keep down their slaves, if we will be 
quiet, yet they cannot tolerate a discussion of 
Slavery in the Free States, as we thereby encou- 
rage the slaves in the Slave States to insnijec- 
tion and sedition. This argument might fail to 
reach and convince us, inasmuch as we, ourselves, 
are safe fiom any danger of insurrection in the 
Slave States. 

But they bring it home to our fears by declar- 
ing that their }>eace is of more importance than 
the interest of the nation ; that they prefer Sla- 
very even to Union; that if we will not acquiesce 
in allowing them to maintain, fortify and extend 
Slavery on equal terms, then they will dissolve 
the Union, and we will all go down together, or 
we will all suft'er a common desolation. There 
are few men — and there ought to be few — who 
would be so intent on the subject of establishing 
Freedom that they would consent to a subver- 
sion of the Union to produce it, because the 
Union is a positive benefit, nay, an absolute ne- 
cessit\% and to save the Union, men iiiny natu- 
rally "dare to delay. Most men, therefore, very 
cheerfully prefer to let the subject of Slavery 
rest for some better time — for some bette'- occa- 
sion — for some more fortunate circumstances, 
and they aie content to keep the Union with 
Slavery if it cannot he kept otherwise. 

You see how this has worked in demoralizing 
the Amcricau people. Less than thirty years 



ago the Governor of Massachusetts — that first 
and frtest of the States — actually recommended 
the Legislature to pass laws which would declare 
that the meetings of citizens held to discuss the 
subject of Slavery should be deemed seditious, 
and should be dissolved by the police ! The 
Governor of the State of New York, who prece- 
ded me in that high office, duritig his admihis- 
tration, and within your own lifetime and mine, 
actually made the same recommendation to the 
Legislature of that State. AVhat was recom- 
mended, but not carried out in those States by 
law, became a custom and practice; for, as you 
know, when the laws did not dissolve the public 
assembly, there was a period of near twenty 
years in which no public meeting of men opposed 
to the extension or aggrandizement of Slavery, 
could be held without being dispersed by the 
mob, acting in concert with the general opinion 
of the country. 

When the people of the Free States were thus 
demoralized, what wonder is it, that for twelve 
years all debates on the subject of slavery or the 
presentation of the subject by the people even 
iti the form of a petition, was repressed and 
tramjjled under foot, and remained there until 
John Quincy Adams at last rallied a party at ouiid 
him, strong enough to restore freedom of debate 
in the Hou.'^e of Representatives! What wonder 
is it that within the last year, in the very face of 
the organization, and the onward march of the 
Rei>ublican party, the administration of the Fede- 
ral Government has actually, by its officeis, ap- 
pointed in compliance with the dictation of the 
slaveholders, abandoned the Federal mails to the 
inspection and surveillance of the magistrates of 
the slave States : so that they may abstract and 
commit to the flames every word that any man 
may speak, however eloquent, able, truthful or 
moderate, in the Halls of Congress against slavery 
and in favor of freedom. 

This, fellow citizens, is your Government. 
This is the condition in which you aie i)laced. I 
am sorry to say — but I like to be truthful — that 
I have no esjjecial compliments for you of the 
State of Illinois, on this subject; for in this 
long catalogue of extraordinary concessions to 
slavery, under the impulse of fear, I thiidc the 
very first protest that ever came from the Stale 
of Illinois was as late as the year 1855; after 
all these atrocious concessions had been made, 
and we were brought to the necessity of going 
back and undoing mischief that had been done. 
You sent two senators to Congress ; you insisted 
upon extending the Wilraot Proviso over the 
territory acquired from Spain. How did they 
do it 7 They voted for the AVilmot Proviso under 
your instructions, and they voted against it a\ itli- 
out instructions when it came to the jiracti- 
cai test. I think you made no protest until Mr, 
Douglas demanded one single and last conces- 
sion "for the puri)ose," as he said, " of exclud- 
ing the whole subject from Congress." That 
was the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise, 
containing the restrictions for tlie protection of 
freedom in the Territories of Kansas and Ne- 
braska. Then you sent a noble rei'rescnlative 
to the Senate in the person of Judge Trumbull. 
[Loud and prolonged a])j)lause.] 

A voice — "We'll send him again." 

Yes, send him again. 

" We will ;■' " we will." 

I marveled when I rose here before you to 



29 



day and saw this immense assemblage, whicli no 
edifice but only the streets of Chicago could hold. 
[Cheers and laughter], and I wondered how it 
would have been had I come here in 1850, or 
even down at any later day before the abroga- 
tion of the Missouri Compromise. 

But, fellow-citizens, let by-gones be by-gones. 
I have seen the time when I hud as little courage 
and as little resolution on this subject as most of 
you. [Laughter. ] I was born into the demoral- 
ization — I was born a slaveholder, and have some 
excuse, which you have not. All these things 
were done, not because you loved slavery, but 
because you loved the Union. 

When slavery became identical in the public 
mind with the Union, how natural it was, even for 
patriotic men, to approve of, or to at least excuse 
and tolerate slavery. How odious did it become 
for men to be Free-soilers and be regarded as 
Abolitionists, when to be an Abolitionist was, in 
the estimation of mankind, to be a traitor to one's 
country. How nattiially was it then to believe 
that slavery after all might not be so very bad, 
and to believe that it might be necessary and 
might be right at some time, or on some occasion 
which times and occasions were always a good 
way off from themselves; especially, how natural 
was it, when the whole Christian Church, with 
all its sects, bent itself to the support of the 
Union, mistaking the claim of slavery for the 
cause of the Union. 

How extensive this proscription for the sake 
and in the name of Union, has been and is to 
this day, you will see at once when I tell you 
that there is not in this whole Republic, from 
one end of it to the other, a man who maintams 
that slavery shall not be extended, who can se- 
cure, at the hands of his country, any part in the 
administration of its government from a tide- 
waiter in the Custom House, or a Postmaster in 
a rural disti ict, to a Secretary of State, a Minis- 
ter in a foreign court, or a President of the 
United States. How could you expect that a 
people, every one of whom is born with a pos- 
sible chance, and a fair expectation of being 
something — perhaps President of the United 
States — would resist the demoralization prose- 
cuted by such means ? And when it becomes a 
her&sy, for which a man is deprived of position 
in an ecclesiastical sect to which he belongs, 
how could you expect that the members of the 
Christian churches would be bold enough to 
provoke ■ the censure of the Christian world? 
Above all, our Constitution intended to give us, 
our frame of government, as we have always 
supposed, was so established, that it did give us 
a judiciary which cannot err, which must be in- 
fallible, and must not be disputed ; and when 
the Judicial authority, which has the army and 
the navy, through the direction of the Executive 
power, to execute its judgments and decrees, 
pronounces that every appeal made for freedom 
is seditious, that every syllable in defense of 
liberty is treason, and the natural sympathy we 
feel for the oppressed is to be punished as a 
crime ; while that body is unwilling, or at least 
unable to bring to punishment one single culprit 
out of the thousand of pirates who bring away 
slavt's from Africa to sell in foreign lands — how 
could you expect a simple agricultural people 
such as we are, to be so much wiser and better 
than our Presidents and Vice-Presidents, Sena- 



tors and Representatives in Congress, and even 
our Judges? 

I have brought you down, fellow citizens, to 
the time when this demoralization was almost 
complete. How assured its ultimate success 
seemed, after the compromise of 1850, you will 
learn from a fact which 1 have never before men- 
tioned, but which I will now : Horace Mann, one 
of the noblest champions of freedom on this 
continent, confessed to me, after the passage of 
the slavery laws of that year, that he despaired 
of the cause of humanity. In 1854, after the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise, without pro- 
ducing so much alarm as a considerable thunder 
storm would do in the nation, there was only 
one man left who hoped against the prevailing 
demoralization and who cheered and sustained 
me through it; and that man, in his zeal to 
make his prediction just, was afterwards betrayed 
so far by his zeal that he became ultimately a 
monomaniac and suffered on the gallows. That 
was John Brown. [Sensation.] The first and 
only time I ever saw him was when he called 
upon me after the abrogation of the Missouri 
Compromise, and asked me what I thouglit of 
the future. I said I was saddened and disap- 
pointed. I would persevere, but it was against 
hope. He said, " Cheer up. Governor ; the peo- 
ple of Kansas will not accept slavery ; Kansas 
will never be a slave State." [Great ajiplause.] 

I took then a deliberate survey of the broad 
field ; I considered all ; I examinrd and consid- 
ered all the political forces which were revealed 
to my observation. I saw that freedom in the 
future States of this continent was the necessity 
of this age, and of this country. I saw that the 
establishment of this as a Republic, conservative 
of the rights of human nature, was the cause of 
the whole world ; and I saw that the time had 
come when men, and women, and children were 
departing from their homes in the eastern States, 
and were followed or attended by men, women 
and children from the European nations — all of 
them crowded out by the pressure of population 
upon subsistence in the older parts of the world, 
and all making their way up the Hudson River, 
through the Erie Canal, along the railroads, by 
the way of the Lakes, spreading themselves in a 
mighty flood, over Michigan, Iowa, Indiana, and 
Illinois, and even to the banks of the Mississippi. 
I knew that these emigrants were planting a 
town every day, and a State every three years, 
heedless and unconcerned as they were, think- 
ing only of provision for their immediate wants, 
of shelter and lands to till in the West — I knew 
the interest they would have when they should 
get here, and that was, that they should own 
the land themselves. [Cries of " good, good," 
and applause] — that slaves should not come into 
competitioa with them here, [Renewed ap- 
plause. ] 

So, as they passed by me, steamboat load after 
steamboat load, and railroad train after railroad 
train, though they were the humblest and per- 
haps the least educated and least trained portion 
of the communities from which they had come, 
I knew that they had the instinct of interest, and 
below, and deeper than that, the better in>ti(!( t 
of justice. [Applause.] And I said, I will tru-t 
these men ; I will trust these exiles; my fanh 
and reliance henceforth is on the poor, jiot on 
the rich; on the humble, not on ti<- >;M.'t. 
[Applause.] Aye, and sad it was tu coalers, but 



30 



it was so. I said, henceforth I put my trust not 
in my native countrymen, but I put it in the 
exile from foreign lauds. He has an abhorrence 
for, and he has never been accustomed to, slavery 
by habit. Here he will stay and retain these 
Territories free. [Applause.] 

I was even painfully disappointed at first, in 
seeing that tlie emigrants to the West, had no 
inore^consciousness of their interest in this ques- 
tion, when they arrived here, than they had in 
their native countries. The Irishman who had 
struggled against oppression in his own country, 
failed'me ; the German seemed at first, but, thank 
God, not long, dull, and unconscious of the duty 
that devolved upon him. This is true ; but 
Devertheless, I said that the interest and instincts 
of these people would ultimately bring them out, 
and when the States which they plant and rear 
and fortify shall apply for admission into the 
Federal Union, they will come not as slave States 
but as free States. [Applause.] I looked one 
step furtlier. I saw how we could redeem all that 
had been lost; and redeem it, too, by appealing 
to the very passions and interests that had lost 
all. [Hear! Hear! ] 

The process was easy. The slave States of the 
Soulh had demoralized the free Stales of the 
North by giving them presidencies, secretary- 
ships, foreign missions and post offices. And 
now, here in the Northwest, we will build up 
more free States than there are slave States. — 
These free States having a common interest in 
favor of freedom, equal to that of the Southern 
Slave States in favor of slavery, will offer to 
Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massa- 
chusetts and New Jersey, objects worthy their 
ambition. [Applause.] And to-day, I see the 
very realization of it all. I can give you advo- 
cates for freedom in the Northern States, as bold, 
as out-spoken, as brave, and as confident of the 
durability of the Union, as you can find for 
slavery in the Southern btates.. Aye, and when 
the Southern States demoralize the free States by 
saying they will give their trade and traffic, buy 
their silks and their linens, and other trumpery, 
provided they can buy their principles in the 
sale and the bart^ain must be struck, I said, there 
shall be, in those new free States in the North- 
west, men who will say, we will buy your silks 
and linens, and your trumpery of every sort, we 
will even buy more, and i)ay you quite as well, 
provided you do not betray your principles. 
[Applause.] 

All this was simply restoring the balance of 
the Republican system, bringing in a counter 
force in favor of freedom to counteract the es- 
tablished political agencies of slavery. You 
have heard that I have said that the last Demo- 
crat is born in this nation. [Laughter and ap- 
plause.] I say so, however, with the qualifica- 
tion before used, that by Democrat I mean one 
Avho will maintain the Democratic principles 
which constitute the present creed of the Demo- 
cratic party [" Hear, hear ; we understand it"] ; 
and for the reason, a very simple one, that 
slavery cannot pay any longer, and the Demo- 
crat does not work for anybody who does not 
pay. [Great applause.] I propose to pay all 
kinds of patriots, hereafter, just as they come. 
I propose to pay them fair consideration if they 
will only be true to freedom, I propose to 
gratify all their aspirations for wealth and power, 
as much as the slave states can. 



But, fellow citizens, we had no party for thi.s 
principle. There was the trouble. Democracy 
was the natural ally of slavery in the South. 
We were either whigs, or if you please, Ameri- 
cans, some of us, and thank God I never was 
one — in the limited sense of the term. [Cries of 
"good," "good," and applause.] But the 
Whig party, or the American party, if not 
equally an ally of the Slave party, in tiie South, 
was, at least, a treacherous and unreliable party 
for the interests of freedom. [That's so,] Only 
one thing was wanting, that was, to dislodge 
from the Democratic party, the Whig party, and 
the Native American party, men enough to con- 
stitute a Republican party — the party of Free- 
dom. [Applause.] 

And for that we were indebted to the kindness, 
unintentional, no doubt, of your distinguished 
Senator, now a candidate for the Presidency, 
Mr. Douglas— [laughter] who in procuring the 
abrogation of the Missouri Compromise, so shat- 
tered the columns of these parties, as to dis- 
integrate them, and instantly there was the 
material, the preparation, for the onslaught. 

Still there was wanted an occasion ; and that 
occasion was given, when, in an hour of mad- 
ness, the Democratic party and Administration, 
with the sympathy, or at least the acquiescence, 
of the Old Line Whigs and the Native Ameri- 
cans, refused to allow the State of Kansas to 
e.\ercise the perfect freedom in choosing be- 
tween liberty and slavery, which they had pro- 
mised to her, except she should exercise it for 
slavery. Then came the hour. We had then, 
fellow-citizens, the material for a party ; we had 
the occasion for a party, and the Republican 
party sprang into existence at once, full armed. 
I will never knowingly do evil that good may 
come of it; I will never even wit h that others 
may do evil that good may come of it ; and for 
the' same reason that I know the evil to be cer- 
tain, and the good only possible or problematical. 
But no man ever rejoiced more heartily over the 
birth of his first born than I did v/hen I saw the 
folly and madness of the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise and the rejection of Kansas. [Ap- 
plause.] These acts, I said to myself, are the 
doings of Presidents, of Senators, of Judges, of 
Priests and of Deacons ; and when the Republi- 
can party organized itself, I said now is the work 
complete, [Good! Good!] 

How much I have been cheered in this long 
contest, by seeing that only stolen, surreptitious 
advantages were gained by slavery in the form 
of rescripts and edicts, and laws on the statute 
book ; while the cause of freedom brought in 
first, California; next, New Mexico, with her 
constitution claiming freedom; next, Kansas; 
next, Minnesota, and next Oregon ; you may all 
know, if you possibly remember, the song of joy, 
not so poetic, but as full of truth and happiness, 
as the song of Miriam, which I then uttered, 
declaring that that was the end, and the victory 
was won. [Loud a[)[)lause.] The battle is 
ended and the victory is ours. Why then, say 
they, why not withdraw from the field? For 
the simple reason that if the victor retire from 
the field, the vanquished will then come back, 
and the battle will not be won. Why should 
the victor withdraw, and surrender all his con- 
quests to the conquered enemy? Why should 
he place the enemy back upon the field, and 
withdraw his legions into the far distance, to 



31 



give him a chance to re-establish the line that 
has been broken up ? 

The Republican party will now complete this 
great revoluliou. I know it will, becaiise, in the 
first place, it clearly perceives its duties. It 
is unanimous upon this subject. We have 
had hesitation heretofore, but the creed to 
which I have already adverted, which issued 
from that Council Chamber now before me, an- 
nounced the true determination, and embodies 
that great, living, national idea of Freedom, with 
wliich I began. I know that the Republican 
party will do it, because it finds the necessary 
forces in all the free States adequate, I trust, to 
achieve success, and has forces in reserve, and 
inci-easing in every slave State in the Union, and 
only waiting until the success of the Republican 
party in the free Slates will be such as to war- 
rant protection to debate, and free suffrage in the 
slave States. [Applause.] But, above all, I know 
it, because the Republican party has, what is 
necessary in every revolution, chosen the right 
line of policy. It is the policy of peace and 
moral suasion ; of freedom and suffrage ; the 
policy, not of force, but of reason. [Applause.] 
It returns kindness for unkindness ; fervently 
increased loyalty for demonstrations of disloyalty; 
patience as becomes the strong, in contention 
with the weak. [Applause.] 

It leaves the subject of slavery in the slave 
States to the care and responsibility of the slave 
States alone — (loud cheers) — abiding by the con- 
stitutioaof the country, which makes the slave 
States on this subject sovereign; and, trusting 
tliat tlie end cannot be wrong, provided that it 
shall confine itself within its legitimate line of 
duty, thereby making Freedom paramount in 
tlie Federal Government, and making it the in- 
terest of every American citizen to sustain it as 
such. I know that the Republican party will 
succeed in this, because it is a positive and an 
active party. It is the only party in the country 
that is or can be positive in its action. You have 
three other parties, or forms of parties, but 
each of them without the characteristics of a 
party. You are to choose. The citizen is to 
choose between the Republican party and one of 
these. 

Try them now by their candidates. Mr. Lin- 
coln represents the Republican party. [Ilearty 
applause.] He represents a party which has de- 
termined that not one more slave shall be im- 
ported from Africa, or transferred from any 
slave State, domestic or foreign, and placed upon 
the common soil of the United States. [Cheers.] 
If you elect him, you know, and the world 
knows, what you have got. Take the case of 
Mr. John Bell, an honorable man-; a kind man, 
and a very learned man, a very patriotic man ; 
a man whom I respect, and in social intercourse 
quite as much as everywhere else, as here where 
my word may be regarded as simply complimen- 
tary ; but what does Mr. John Bell, and his Con- 
stitutional Union — what is the name of his par- 
ty ? Constitutional Union, is it not ? [Laugh- 
ter.] What does Mr. Bell and his Constitutional 
L^nion party propose on this question ? He pro- 
I)Oses to ignore it altogether ; not to know that 
there is such a question. If we can suppose 
such a thing possible as ^Ir. Bell's election by 
the people, what tlien ? He ignored the question 
until the day of election came, but it will not 
Btay ignored. Kansas comes and asks or de- 



mands to be admitted into the Union. The In- 
dian Territory, also, south of Kansas, must be 
vacated by the Indians, and here at once the 
slaveholders present the question as tliey will 
also do in the case of New Mexico. It will not 
stay ignored. It will not rest. It cannot rest. 
You have postponed the decision for four years, 
and that is all. Postponing does not settle it. 
When defending law suits, I have seen times 
when I thought I won a great advantage by get- 
ting an adjournment, [laughter], but I always 
found, neveatheless, that it was a great deal bet- 
ter to be beaten in the fir.st instance, and try it 
again, than to hang my hopes upon an adjourn- 
ment. [Renewed laughter and applause.] 

Take the other ; Mr. Breckinridge represents 
a party that proposes a policy the very opposite 
of ours. They propose to extend slavery and to 
use the Federal Government to do it. Let us 
suppose him elected. Will that satisfy the 
American j)eople 1 [Cries of "No, no! "] Will 
that settle the question 1 [No, no !] That is only 
what Mr. Buchanan has already done. And if I 
should ptit a vote to this audience, I am sure I 
should get no vote of confidence in Mr. Buchan- 
an. [No, no, no !] That is of course. But if I 
were to go into a Bell-and-Everett National Union 
party meeting, as vast as this, and ask for a vote 
of confidence in James Buchanan, they would 
say No, just as emphatically as you do. In the 
demonstration for Mr. Douglas, which is to be 
made here day after to-morrow — I shall not be 
here, and would not have the right to appear if I 
were — but auy of you have the right, by their 
leave, and you ought not to do it without, to 
offiT and put to vote a resolution of confidence 
in James Buchanan, and you would get precisely 
the same negative response that you get here, 
only a little louder. [Applause and laughter.] 
Then the people are not going to elect Mr. Breck- 
inridge, because he proposes to follow in the 
footsteps of Mr. Buchanan, who is rejected. 
Grant, however, that owing to some misappre- 
hension, or some strange combiu' tion, they may 
obtain all they hope, and indirectly, if not di- 
rectly, make Mr. Breckinridge President, Sup- 
pnse Mr. Breckinridge elected. Does that settle 
the question in favor of slavery ? Then you 
not only have the combination of the Republi- 
cans, and the Constitutional Union party, and 
the Douglas party to drive him out again, 
[Laughter,] but you have only postponed tha 
question for four years more, under circum- 
stances far more serious, possibly fatal. 

You have now disposed of them all except the 
Douglas party. Mr. Douglas' party is not a posi- 
tive party. It proposes just what the Bell party 
profioses — to ignore the question in Congress. 
That is just what we find the people will not do, 
and will not be content to do under John Bell. 
Why should they like it better under Mr. Doug- 
las? Mr. Douglas and his party say there is a 
better way. They don't want it ignored, but 
that it belongs to the Territories, and they can 
settle it better and more wisely than we can. 
What can they do 1 Have they settled it in the 
Territories in favor of slavery 1 Are you, aro 
the people of the free States, going to consent to 
that? If they were, why did they not consent to 
the proposition of the President, that the people 
of Kansas should be subjected to slavery under 
the Lecompton Constitution? Then, they said, 
>hat was the act of the people. But if the peo- 



32 



pie of tlie Territory should decide in favor of 
freedom, are the slave States going to acquiesce 1 
No, because they have their candidate in the 
person of Mr. Breckinridge to continue the war 
until they Khali regain the lost battle. 

But ?tlr. Douglas' proposition may result in a 
ditferent way. He j^ays, if I understand him 
rightly, thai it is immaterial to him, at least he 
has no right and does not propose to decide upon 
the question, whether they vole slavery up or 
down. [Laughter.] Then they will vote sla- 
very up in some territories, and vote it down in 
some other territories. That, fellow citizens, 
will be Compromise ; are you going to be satis- 
fied with a new Compromise? You have tried 
them, and found that they are never kept. On 
the whole, you are very sorry that they were 
ever made. 

Bui is a compromise that is brought about in 
thai way, the irresponsible act of Squatter Sove- 
reignty in the Territories, to satisfy the slave 
States ? Tliey have repudiated Jlr. Douglas, the 
ablest man among them all ; they have repudi- 
ated him altogether, because they will not be 
satisfied with a Squatter Sovereignty that gives 
any Territory whatever to he free States. 

i have now demonstrated to you, I think, that 
the Republican party is the only positive party. 
But I can show it by another argument. The 
Republican party has one faith, one creed, one 
baptism, one candidate, and will have but one 
victory. The power of slavery has three creeds, 
three faiths, and is to have three victories. 
[Laughter ] They have openly confessed, or 
rather, the secret leaks out, through conversa- 
tions and consultations, that they do not expect 
to get a single victory, any more than you expect 
they will. All their hope and endeavor is to 
defeat the Republican party, and take the chances 
for a share of the fruits to result from your de- 
feat. [Applause.] 

Suppose they should, by combinations and 
coalitions, secure the defeat of the Republican 
party, are you going to stay defeated. [Cries of 
no, no.] You have been defeated once, have you 
not ? Can you not bear another defeat ? [Yes, 
half a dozen of them.] You will not have to I 
am sure. [Laughter.] But I am supposing for 
the purpose of argument that we are defeated by 
a coalition. Did any one ever know a cause that 
was lost when it was defeated by a coalition ? 
[No.] There was a coalition in Europe five years 
ago in which Hungary was defeated by the coali- 
tion of Austria with Russia ; but Hungary has 
risen up again to-day, and the coalition is under- 
stood to be dissolved. [Applause.] There was a 
coalition two or three years later, in whicli Rus- 
sia was defeated by the combination of France 
and England; but Russia is just as strong, just 
as steadily pressing on towards Constantinople 
to-day, as she has been every day from the 
time of the Czar Peter until now. And while 
she has abated nothing of her purposes, and 
nothing of hope, she has gained strength. 
So, all the eflx^rts of the statesmen of both 
France and England are required to keep 
them from falling out with each other before 
the battle begins. There is no danger and 
not much disgrace in being beaten by coalitions ; 
and there is no danger, because they are coali- 
tions. The more the coalitions are necessary, 
the less are they effectual. One party is -always 
stronger than two other parties, hx a contest, un- 



less the whole result is staked upon a single 
battle. 

But, fellow citizens, the explanation of the 
whole matter is, that there is a time wlien the 
nation needs and will lequire and demand the 
settlement of subjects of contention. That time 
has come at last, when the parties in this coun- 
try, both of the slaveholding states and of the 
free states, both the slaveholder and the free 
laboring man, will require an end — a settlement 
of the conflict. It must be repressed. The 
time has come to repress it. The jieople will 
have it repressed. They are not to be forever 
disputing upon old issues and^ controversies. 
New subjects for national action will come up. 
This controversy must be settled and ended. 
The Republican party is the agent, and its suc- 
cess will terminate the contest about slavery in 
the new states. Let this battle be decided in 
favor of freed'om in the territories, and not one 
.slave will ever be carried into the territories of 
the United States, and that will end the L're- 
pressible Conflict. [Great applause.] 

And because it is necessary that it should be 
done, is exactly the reason why it will be done. 
It cannot be settled otherwise, because it in- 
volves a question of justice and of conscience. 
It is for us not merely a question of policy, but 
a question of moral right and duty. It is wrong, 
in our judgment, to perpetuate by our votes or 
to extend slaverv. 

It is a very different thing when the slavehold- 
er proposes to extend slavery; for that is, with 
him, only a question of merchandise. Men, of 
whatever race or nation, in our estimation, are 
men, not merchandise. According to our faith, 
they all have a natural right to be men, but in 
the estimation of the other party, African slaves 
are not men, but merchandise. It is, therefore, 
nothing more or less with them than a tariff 
question; a question of protecting commerce. 
With us it is a question of human rights, and 
therefore, when it is settled, and settled in favor 
of the right, it will stay settled just as every 
question that is settled in favor of the right al- 
ways does. 

But if it be taken merely as a question of poli- 
cy, it is equally plain that it will be settled in 
favor of the Republican side, because our high- 
est policy is the development of the resources 
and the increase of the population, wealth and 
strength of the Republic. Every man sees for 
himself, and no man need be told that the coal, 
the iron, the lead, the copper, the silver and the 
gold in our mountains and plains are to be dug 
out by the human hand, and that the only hand 
that can dig them is the hand of a freeman, 
[Great applause.] Every man sees that this 
wealth; and strength and greatness are to be ac- 
quired by human labor, guided by human intel- 
ligence and human purpose. Every man knows 
that the slave, even if he be a white man, will 
have neither the strength nor the intelligence, 
nor the virtue to create wealth ; for the slave has 
a simple line of interest before him — it is to ef- 
fect the least and consume the most. [Hear, 
hear.] 

But, fellow citizens, I seem to myself to have 
fallen below the dignity and greatness of this 
question, in discussing a proposition whether 
free labor or slave labor is more expedient, or 
more necessary. Let me rise once more, and 
1 remind you that we are building a new and great 



33 



empire ; not building^ it, a modern Rome and 
Paris and Naples stand, upon the ruins and over 
the graves of tenfold greater multitudes of men 
than those who now occupy their sites ; but upon 
a soil, where we are the first possessors, and the 
first architects. The tomb and the catacomb in 
Rome and Paris and Naples are filled with relics 
and implements of human torture and bondage, 
showing the ignorance and barbarity of their 
former occupants. Let us, on the other hand, 
build up an empire that shall leave no monument 
or relic among our graves, and no trace in our 
history, to prove that we were false to the great 
interests of humanity. Human nature is entitled 
to a home on this earth somewhere. Where else 
shall it be if it be not here ? Human nature is 



entitled, among all the nations of the earth, to 
have a nation that will truiy represent, defend 
and vindicate it. What other nation shall it be, 
if it be not ours ? 

People of Illinois ! People of the great West! 
You are all youthful, vigorous, generous. Your 
Slates are youthful, vigorous and virtuous. The 
destinies of our country, the hopes of mankind, 
the hopes of humanity rest upon you. Ascend, 
I pray ! I conjure you ! to the dignity of that 
high responsibility. Thus acting, you will have 
peace and harmony and 1: appiness in your future 
years. The world, looking on, will applaud you 
and future generations in all ages and in all 
regions will rise up and call you blessed. [Long 
continued cheering.] 



SPEECH AT LAXSIXG, MICHIGAN. 



THE 



IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT REAFFIRMED. 



The Cincinnati Commercial gives the following 
abstract of Senator Seward's speech at Lansing, 
Mich., on thn Iwt intti : S f , A: /<- ii» . . - '- 5 , 

Fellow Citizens : I was leaving, one misty 
morning- in September, the City of Jerusalem, 
with my servants and pack-horses to carry pro- 
visions and clothing, having four marines of the 
United States Navy for guard, and an Arab sheik, 
secured by proper bribes, to give me safe conduct 
across the mountains of Judea, from the Holy 
City to the Dead Sea. The Governor had assign- 
ed me a janissary, under the responsibility of the 
bastinado, to see that we got safely out of the 
dangerous passes. As we climbed one of the 
lofty hills which skirted the Dead Sea, we came 
upon a party of native Arabs, who came out to 
meet us. The janissary rode up to the head of 
our column, and demanded in a loud voice of the 
sheik, " How much man is here?"' [Laughter.] 
He counted the whole party, and told " how 
much man " there was by giving the number in 
our ranks. Standing here in the midst of fifteen 
thousand freemen, I might ask the same ques- 
tion, in the same sense in which the Arab used 
it — meaning how many men are here ? But flat- 
tering as it is to see so many gathered together 
to listen to my words, I deem it of much more 
importance to ask, " How much man is here," 
than to inquire how many. I like to speak to as 
ranch manhood as I can, while I am quite indif- 
ferent as to numbers. 

Fellow citizens, it is not, after all, so much a 
compliance with the kind invitation of the Repub- 
licans of Michigan which has brought me here, as 
it is my own desires. I have an interest in seeing 
the newly formed Capitol of an embryo State, the 

3 



organization and development of free institutions, 
the prosperity of a free people ; and I would wil- 
lingly travel over many more weary miles of cor- 
duroy road, if I could reach the centre of such and 
so prosperous a community. I would gladly 
derive from the gathered masses of my countrj-- 
men the inspiration needful to instruct me in 
conveying the lessons which our popular life and 
development are perpetually teaching. Believ- 
ing, as I do, that man is but for a day, while 
humanity is universal, I shall have nothing to 
say about men. If I know myself, I have no 
prejudice against any man, however widely he 
may differ from me in opinion. Holding fast to 
principles, independently of personalities, I wish 
to say that society always excuses bad measures 
and bad principles when they are adopted by 
those whom they approve, and with whom they 
are accustomed to co- operate. But if I can find 
out the principles which move men, I shall then 
be able to judge intelligently how far they are to 
be trusted as guides. In order to determine any 
matter justly, we should kaow the principles in- 
volved in it. Nothing new arises before us for 
settlement, that is not related to what has gone 
before. What has been of old, was yesterday, is 
to-day, and will be again to-morrow. We fulfill 
our part upon the stage, pass oft', and let the re- 
sponsibility devolve upon our successors. Within 
the past ten years we have added three new 
States to the Federal Union, and in the next ten 
years we shall have added four more. 

The question that most interests us as patriots 
is this — What kind of a nation shall we be- 
come 1 We are so far on our way, and now, if 
the only question for us were how shall we con 



34 



suit our own ease and peace? we might say — we 

are safe any way. We who are living to-day, 
and perish to-morrow, are in no danger. If AVe 
sought only our own peace we miiiht adopt the 
indifferent creed of that political philosopher 
who "don't care wliether Slavery is voted up or 
voted down." But to those coming up after us, 
t:;e settlement of that question is as vital and 
important as the settlement of the question of 
ti;e American Revolution was to our fathers. 
Vt'hy, fellow-citizens, they might have enjoyed 
peace, and security, and prosperity, and not 
cared for the question that led them to under- 
take and carry through that arduous revolution- 
ary struggle. But they cared for their posterity, 
for us. and therefore tliey settled the question 
then and there. 

FelloT citizens, what you in the West want 
is, to build a nation which shall be free, pros- 
perous and honored ; a nation which shall be 
acknowledged and revered as the greatest 
people whom the circling sun has ever looked 
down upon, from the beginning of time. Do 
you want anything less ? If so, you are not 
worthy of the great trust committed to your 
charge. What kind of a nation thtm do you 
want] Just such a nation as the State of Mich- 
igan ; a land where every man may sit, happy 
and free, not indeed under his own vine and fig- 
tree, but under his own apple, peach and shade 
trees, with none to molest or to make him 
afraid ; a land where all the citizens are free to 
exercise the spontaneous will of tVeemen. Yon 
may go through the whole earth, and yon will 
never find such a body of citizens as this ti>-day, 
gathered voluntarily together to discuss and se- 
cure their rights. Not in France or Rome or any 
nation of Europe or Asia, could such a meeting be 
gathered, without a band of armed dragoons be- 
ing gathered to disperseand trample the 01 down. 

Fellow citizens — I was undertaking to analyze 
this extraordinary spectacle of a great popular 
meeting, discussing with dignity and mod«ration 
the conduct of their rulers, and prepared to dis- 
card from their service every man who has forfeit- 
ed their confidence. The fact of primary impor- 
tance here, is that every man is free. I am here 
surrounded with 15,000 freemen. Now suppose 
for a moment, fellow citizens, that I was sur- 
rounded by 15,000 slaves, or even by 14,000 
slaves and 1.000 freemen, and that having the 
opportunity of assemblage, they were to rise in 
insurrection and rebellion. Of course I must 
not say a word of human rights, or they miglit 
rise and cut the throats of the 1,000 freemen. 
There can be no such thing as freedom of debate, 
where all or many are slaves. Nest, the greatness 
of Michigan consists in the fact that all its citi- 
zens are voluntary colonists. They came here 
not as an enforced emigration — they remain here 
not because they were born here, but because 
they are willing to come, and free to stay or to go. 
Thus, you have not a people gathered only from 
the shores of Western New York, or born with- 
in your own borders, but a peojjle gathered from 
every State in the Federal Union, and every 
country of Europe ; a people fertile in all those 
resources which make a great nation ; a people 
which brings from every State just those ele- 
ments which infuse life, wealth and power. You 
bring the bold, hardy and enterprising, and the 
brave and fearless men out of every Christian 
country on earth. You bring them from Eng- 



land, Ireland, Scotland, France and Italy ; and 
every man who comes is a man fit to be one 
of the founders of a Free State. [A voice in the 
crowd, " From Africa, too ?"] Reverse this rule, 
and suppose that instead of this class of useful 
citizens, you brought only slaves and paupers, 
or even convicts, as some States export convicts 
to countries that will take them. What a differ- 
ence in yourcivilization and development should 
we behold ! The weak and useless elements in 
a population never voluntarily emigrate. Bold- 
ness, resolution and enterprise are the require- 
ments of successful colonists. No colonies ever 
succeeded without them. This involves conse- 
quences of more importance than at first thought 
you would be likely to suppose. Can anybody 
tell me what nation on earth could have made 
this vast network of railroads which we possess 
by any other system of labor than ours 1 Can 
any body tell me how we could have made it 
without Irishmen ? Can any one tell me, if we 
had all been Irishmen, how we could ever have 
got this railway system organized ? 

I am coming now to the question which my 
respected friend from a distance has asked me. 
Now suppose, by any course of policy which you 
sliould adopt, you could discourage and prevent 
freemen from any part of the world from coming 
in here ? The European States would send their 
refuse classes — their convicts to colonize you. 
There would never be, thanks to the Providence 
that guides above, convicts enough to constitute 
a great country, but there would be enough to 
deteriorate fatally the character, the prosperity 
and the virtue of the people. To multiply such 
classes of population, is but to multiply weak- 
ness. What kind of labor should we have, if the 
freemen, the independent citizens from all coun- 
tries, were to be met with some such discourag- 
ing policy as this ? What would you have to 
supply the place of that great, busy, enterprising 
free labor which now distinguishes you "? What 
could you have, but what South Carolina and 
Georgia fell back upon to replace the need of 
free labor settlers — the importation, namely, 
through the employment of New York vessels, of 
African negroes, at $100 a head, to settle, and 
clear up, and develop the State of Michigan. 
Now you have happily escaped that one great 
evil of having Africans broaght here com|;ulso- 
rily to perform that labor. And how have you 
been enabled to escape it 1 By the wisdom and 
foresight of our forefathers, who, by the Ordi- 
nance of 1787, declared that neither Slavery nor 
involuntary servitude should exist in all your 
borders. Because there were men in those days 
wise enough to look across the broad fields of the 
West and anticipate that there would be those 
who would seek to cover them with Slavery. Is 
there a man in the State of Michigan who would 
be willing to-day that there should exist one 
single, solitary slave, obliged and bound to per- 
form involuntary labor within the State of Michi- 
gan ? [Cries of "No! Nol"] If I take out a 
freeman and put in a slave, what happens ? 
More than the loss of an enterprising and useful 
citizen — the loss of virtue — the loss of the spirit 
and energy that exis.'s only with entire freedom. 
Let it once be understood that Slavery may exist 
here, and all the emigrants would desert Michi- 
gan at once. The two systems of labor cannot 
exist as a permanent form of civilization together. 
There is an irrepressible conflict. [Loud and 



35 



long continued cheers.] Introduce Slavery, and 
you expel Freedom. Introduce Freedom, and 
Slavery will, sooner or later, die. Now, from the 
beginning of my existence in politics, I have 
seen this conflict, and I have considered that my 
bounden duty as a patriot was to see to it, so far 
as it depended upon my action, that every new 
State should be a Free State, and to diminish it 
in the Slave States so far as, constitutionally, it 
could be done. That is the whole question. If 
I am wrong, I am grievously wrong. 

Let us see what is the alternative, if I am 
wrong. Did you ever know of a State peopled ex- 
clusively by freemen that was in any danger from 
domestic insurrection, foreign invasion, or civil 
war 1 Is there any Slave State but will confess 
itself to-day in danger of insurrection ? A few 
madmen organized at Chatham, in Canada, enter 
the oldest and proudest of the Southern States 
of this Union with a handful of pikes and S[)ears 
— and straightway the Commonwealth of Vir- 
ginia quivers and shakes with the terrors of do- 
mestic insurrection and servile war. Kentucky 
expels from her borders freemen who defend 
freedom within her limits, and Tennessee visits 
with the stake and faggot slaves who aspire to 
freedom. What do we see this moment in Texas 
— a State young and vigorous like Micliigau, and 
priding herself upon still greater significance 
and power ? She is convulsed with an almost 
universal panic because Slavery is discussed 
among a portion of her citizens. 

But, I am asked, why interfere in this matter ? 
why not stand aloof, and let it take care of It- 
self, and adopt the Illinois Senator's maxim of 
entire non-intervention. I will tell you why. 
We are maintaining a standing army, of the 
heavy cost of one thousand dollars per man ; 
and a standing navy, which is large, though not 
very ettective ; and what are we maintaining it 
for ? To take care of iVIichigan ; to protect New 
York, or IVIassachusetts, or Ohio, against internal 
or external violence ? No ; there is not a nation 
on the face of the earth which would dare to 
attack these free Stftes, or any of them, if they 
were even disunited. Bat we are doing it in 
order that slaves may not escape from slave States 
into the free, and to secure those States from 
domestic insurrection, and because, if we pro- 
voke a foreign foe, Slavery cries out that it is in 
danger. Have I not a right to say that if it were 
possible, I would rather not have an army and 
navy — rather not wring from the hand of free 
labor its earnings to increase an army, whose 
tendency always and everywhere is to corrupt 
public virtue. 

What, then, fellow citizens, are my limits 1 
Simply these. The Constitution of the United 
States makes you and me sovereigns over the 
Territories for their good. They are vacant, un- 
occupied, unimproved; and if left to them- 
selves, the cupidity of the slaveholder and the 
slave-trader would lead them to enter them and 
colonize them with Slavery; And this would be 
done by a surprise — by a movement, which, 
while it might not people the Territory with 
Slavery, would introduce enough to demoralize 
all the people, and turn them all into apologists 
for Slavery, upon a principle which, I am 
ashamed to confess, has ruled this nation for 
forty years. It is this : that for the sake of 
peace, of harmony, of quiet, we will sacrifice 
justice, freedom and the welfare of posterity. 



It is that for the sake of living on good terms 
with your neiglibors, while they will not give up 
an error, or a prejudice, or a principle, you iriil. 
There is no virtue among us — no reliance on 
God — no justice, no public conscience, that is 
equal to our dread of the oft-repeated menace, 
that if we don t give up freedom, right, justice 
and everything else, they will set on fire this 
great temple of constitutional liberty and con- 
sume us all. [Loud cheers.] Fellow citizens, I 
have no hope for these United States, but in 
the existence of such honest, candid, considerate 
citizens as will look earnestly into these things 
and interest themselves in their just determina- 
tion. Give me such a man, and I care not 
whether he votes now for Douglas or Breckin- 
ridge, I'll have him a friend of freedom before he 
dies, [applause,] or if he goes an unrepentant 
Democrat to his grave, I'll have his children. 
Fellow citizens, if Gen. Cass had so adminis- 
tered your Territorial Government of Michigan 
as to encourage the introduction of one thousand 
slaves, your noble Commonwealth would now 
have been a Slave State. That is what has been 
done with Texas, where, in a fine agricultural 
Slate, adapted to free labor. Slavery is not only 
established, but we are bound, by the very act 
of admission, to accept four more new Slave 
States out of her soil. That is what would have 
been do.ie with Kansas had we not fought and 
struggled against it with all the energy of free- 
men. Now, fellow citizens, if the man who 
owns his own land is to be replaced by a man 
who is willing that another man should own him 
as a slave, the quality of society is deteriorated; 
and I believe that if you bring the question 
right home to any sound, right-minded man, he 
would say, I would much rather you would make 
a slave of me than to forge your manacles for 
any man who is under my protection and care. All 
that is wanted in oi'der to settle this matter 
rightly is to make sure that all our eflForts con- 
verge to the one great end of fostering Freedom 
and discouraging Slavery. 

They tell us that Popular Sovereignty will 
work out the result of Freedom. So it would, 
if in Congress and in the Administration, you 
had the active friends of Freedom instead of 
men who are on the other side. But, whenever 
you have got to that point you have arrived where 
i the advocates of that convenient doctrine will 
not follow you. Po[iular Sovereignty is good 
only to establish Slavery. Its virtues are not 
I ajipreciated when it works the other way. — 
. [Laughter and applause.] You will find no ad- 
vocates of Popular Sovereignty among the De- 
! mocracy after the 6th day of November next. 
j And then you come right to the great issue of 
the irrepressible conflict, and if you don't like 
the conduct of affairs — why, four years are soon 
ended, and all who are opposed to it will have a 
I fair opportunity in the next Presidential election 
' to fix the machinery for another four years. — 
; [Cheers.] All, on the other liand, which we 
! have to do, is to take care that no missteps give 
! occasion to charge us with abuse of the great 
I trust committed to our hands. All will be well 
if we redeem the confidence of those to whom 
; we have opened up the waf to help secure our 
' natio' al welfare. All will go right when our 
efforts are directed to reclaim for us, a place in 
the family of free nations, and to secure for us 
the respect and confidence of mankind. 



36 



ON THE MISSOURI BORDER. 



HIS 



SPEECH AND ENTHUSIASTIC RECEPTION AT ST. JOSEPH. 



Mb. Chairman, Gentleme:^ and Fellow Cit- 
izens — I think that I have, some time before this, 
said that the most interesting and agreeable sur- 
prise that ever human being liad on this earth 
was that which Columbus felt when— after his 
long and tedious voyage iu search of a continent, 
the existence of which was unknown to himself, 
as to all mankind, and the evidence of whose 
existence was nothing but a suggestion of his 
own philosophy, surrounded as he was by a mu- 
tinous crew, who were determined on the destruc- 
tion of his own life if he should continue the voy- 
age unsuccessfully another day — he went out at 
nfght on the deck of his little vessel, and there 
rose up before him the dark shadow of an island, 
lighted up by the dwellings of human beings like 
himself. That wag the most interesting surprise 
that ever occurred to any man on earth. And 
yet I do not think that Columbus was much 
more surprised than I and those who are with 
me have been to-night: 

We have been traveling in a land of friends 
and brethren, through many States, from Maine 
to Missouri! — along the shores of the ocean, 
along the shores of the great lakes and the banks 
of great rivers — and I will not deny that our foot- 
steps have been made pleasant by kind and 
friendly and fraternal greetings. We entered the 
soil of Missouri this morning, at ten o'clock, feel- 
ing that, although we had a right to regard the 
people of Missouri as our brethren, and although 
we were their brethren and friends, yet we were 
to be regarded by its citizens as strangers, if not 
as aliens and enemies ; but this welcome which 
greets us here surpasses anything that we have 
experienced in our sojourniugs from Bangor, in 
the State of Maine, to this place. The discovery 
tliat here there is so much of kindness for us, so 
much of respect and consideration, takes us by 
surprise. [Applause.] I will not deny that it 
alfects us with deep sensibility, for we did not 
propose to visit St. Joseph, There is a laud be- 
yond you — a land redeemed and saved for free- 
dom, through trials and sufferings that have com- 
mended its young aud growing people to the 
respect of mankind and to our peculiar sympathy. 

We proposed to be quiet travelers through the 
State of Missouri, hoping and expecting without 
stopping here, to rest this night on the other 
:side of the Missouri, where we knew we would 
be welcome. [A voice — ' 'We won't hurt you."] 
No, I know you won't hurt me. The man who 
never wished evil to any human being, who 
challenges enemies as well as friends to show the 
wrong of which any being made iu his own 
form can accuse him when he comes before the 



bar of Justice, has no fear of being harmed in the 
country of his birth and of his affection. But I 
stated that not merely for the purpose (W showing 
how agreeable is the fraternal welcome. It is 
full of promise. I pass over all that has been 
said to me of consideration for myself. There are 
subjects on which I take no verdict from my 
fellow citizens. I choose to take the approba- 
tion if I can get it, of my conscience, and to 
wait till a future age for the respect and consi- 
deration of mankind. [Applause.] But I will 
dwell for one moment on this estraordinswy 
scene, full of assurance on many paints, aud in- 
teresting to every one of you as it is to me. 

The most cheering fact, as it is the most strik- 
ing one in it, is that we who are visitors and pil- 
grims to Kansas, beyond you, find that we have 
reached Kansas already on the northern shores of 
the Missouri river. [Hurrah.] Now come up here 
you — if there are any such before me — who are 
so accustomed to sound an alarm about the dan- 
ger of a dissolution of the Union ; come up here, 
and look at the scene of Kansas aud Missouri, 
so lately hostile, brought together on either 
shore iu the bonds of fraternal affection and 
friendship. [Loud cheers.] That is exactly 
what will always occur whenever you attempt to 
divide this people and to set one portion against 
another. The moment you have brought the 
people to the point where there is the least de- 
gree of danger to the national existence felt, then 
those whom party malice or party ambition have 
arrayed against each other as enemies, will em- 
brace each other as friends and brethren. [Eu- 
thusiastic applause.] 

Let me tell you this simple truth : that though 
you live in a land of slavery there is not a man 
among you who does not love slavery less than 
he loves the Union. [Applause.] Nor have I 
ever met the man who loved freedom so much 
under any of the as[)ects involved in the pre- 
sent Presidential issues as he loved the Union, 
for it is only through the stability and perpetuity 
of this Union that any blesshigs whatever may 
be expected to descend on the American people. 

And now, fellow citizens, there is another les- 
sou which this occasion and this demonstration 
teach. They teach that there is no difference 
whatever in the natures, constitutions or character 
of the people of the several States of this Union, 
or of the several sections of this Union. They 
are all of one nature, even if they are not all 
native born and educated in the same senti- 
ments. Although many of them came from dis- 
tant lands, still the very effect of being an 
American citizen is to make them all alike. 



37 



I will tell you why this is so. The reason is 
simply this : The Democratic principle that 
every man ought to be the owner of the soil that 
he cultivates; and the owner of the limbs and the 
head that he applies to that culture, has been 
adopted in some of the States earlier than in 
others ; and where it was adopted earliest it has 
worked out the fruits of higher advancement, of 
greater eutei'prise, of greater prosperity. Where 



it has not been adopted, enterprise and industry 
have languished in proportion. But it u going 
through; it is bound to go through. [A voice — 
" Not liere.''] Yes, here. As it has already gone 
through eiyhteen States of the Union so it is bound 
to go through all of the other fifteen. It is bound 
to go through all of the thirty-three States of the 
Union for the simple reason that it is Goixo through 
THE woKLD." f Euthusiastic cheering.] 



Eeception and Speeches at St. Louis and Springfield. 

Sketch, of " Old Abe," ifec. 



Mr. Seward said that he had not come to see 
St. Louis or the people of Missouri, but to see 
Kansas, which was entitled to his jjratitude and 
respect. Missouri could take care of herself; 
she did not care for Republican principles, but 
warred with them altogether. If forty years ago 
Missouri had chosen to be a Free State, she 
would now have four millions of people instead 
of one million. He was a plain spoken man, 
and here was talking treason in the stieets of 
St. Louis. He could not talk anything else if he 
talked as an honest man, but he found himself 
out of place here. [A Voice — " You're at home."] 

Here, said he, are the people of Missouri, who 
ask me to make a speech, and at the same time 
there are laws as to what kind of sjieech I may 
make. The first duty that you owe to your city 
and yourselves is to repeal and abrogate every 
law on your statute book that prohibits a man 
from saying what his honest judgment and sen- 
timent and heart tell him is the truth. [Mingled 
surprise and approbation on the part of the 
crowd.] Though I have said these hard things 
about the State of Missouri, I have no hard sen- 
timents about it or St. Louis, for I have great 
faith and hope — nay, absolute trust — in Provi- 
dence and the American jieople. What Missouri 
wants is courage, resolution, spirit, manhood — 
not consenting to take only that privilege of 
speech that slaveholders allow, but insisting on 
complete freedom of speech. 

But I have full trust that it will all come right 
in the end ; that in ten years you will double 
your population, and that in fifteen or twenty 
years j'ou will have four millions of people. To 
secure that, you have but to let every man who 
comes here from whatever state or nation, speak 
out what he believes will promote the interests 
and welfare of mankind. What surprised me in 
Kansas was to see the vast improvements made 
there within six years, with so little wealth or 
.strength among the people; and what surprised 



me in Missouri was that, with such a vast terri- 
tory and with such great resources, there was so 
little of population, improvement and strength 
to be found. [Faint manifestations of approval.] 
I ought not, perhaps, to talk these things to you. 

I sliould have begun at the other end of the 
story, though a citizen of any other State has as 
much liberty here as the citizens of Missouri ; but 
he has less liberty than I like. I want more than 
you have. I want to speak what I think, instead 
of what a Missourian thinks I think you are in 
a fair way of shaming your Government into an 
enlightened position. You are in the way of 
being Germanized into it. I would much rather 
you had sot into it by being Americanized in- 
stead of Germanized ; but it is bette! to come to 
it through that way than not to come to it at all. 

It was through the Germans Germanizing Great 
Britain that Masna Charta was ob'ained, and 
that that great charter of English liberty came to 
be the charter of tlie liberties of the sons of Eng- 
land throughout the whole world. Whatever 
lies in my power to do to bring into successful 
and practical operation the great principle that 
this government is a government for free men 
and not for slaves or slaveholders, and that this 
country is to be the home of the exile from every 
land, I shall do as you are going to do by sup- 
porting Abraham Lincoln for President, and Han- 
nibal Hamlin for Vice-President. [Cheers.] 

At Springfield, where Mr. Lincoln resides, 
there was a crowd awaiting the arrival of the 
train, and a salute was fired as it approached 
the station There was a rush into and about 
the windows of the car in which Mr. Seward 
was seated. Among those who pressed forward 
t" ,-liake him by the hand was Mr. Lincoln him- 
self. His portraits bear a sufficient resemblance 
to liim to make recognition easy, and yet he is 
not \)y any means so hard featured and almost 
repulsive looking as they represent him. 

Ou the contrary, while no one would call him 



38 



a good looking man, neither would anj one be 
repelled by his aspect. The good humored ex- 
pression that lurks about his clear gray eye, tra 
vels the one long, deep curved furrow down his 
cheek, and makes its home somewhere in the 
region of his capacious mouth, must always 
make him friends. He dresses in the ordinary 
style of Western lawyers, black cloth swallow- 
tailed coat, and pants titling lightly to his long, 
bony frame ; tlie inevitable black satin vest, open 
low down, and displaying a bri)ad field of shirt 
bosom, the collar being turned down over a 
black silk neckerchief. 

The crowd commenced to vociferate for Seward 
and finally succeeded in getting him out to the 
platform. After alluding to the extent of his 
trip, he said : 

I am happy to express, on behalf of the party 
with whum I am traveling, our gratitude and ac- 
knowledgments for this kind and generous re- 
ception at the home of 3'our distinguished fellow- 
citizen, our excellent and honored candidate for 
the Chief Magistracy of the United States. If 
there is in any part of the country a deeper in- 
terest felt in his election than there is in any 
other part, it must of course be here, where he 
has live 1 a life of usefulness ; where he is sur- 
rounded by the companions of his labors and of 
his public services. We are happy to report to 
you, although we have traveled over a large part 
of tlie country, we have found no doubtful 
St-^tes. [Ap[ilause.] 

You would naturally expect that I should say 
something about the temper and disposition of 
the State of New York. The State of New York 
will give a generous and cheerful and effective 
support to your neighbor, Abraham Lincoln. I 
have heard about combinations and coalitions 
there, and I have been urged from the beginniug 
to abandon this journey and turn back on my 
footsteps. Whenever I shall find any reason to 
suspect that the majority which the State of 
New York will give for the Republican candi- 
date, will be less than 60,000, [cheers,] I may 



do so The State of New York never fails — 
never flinches. She has been committed from 
the beginning, as she will be to the end, under 
all circumsiances, to the great principles of the 
Republican party. 

She voted to establish this a land of freedom 
for you in 1787. She sustained the Ordinance 
of '87 till you were able to take care of your- 
selves. Among the first acts of her government, 
she abolished slavery for herself. She has known 
nothing of compromises, nothing of condition or 
c]ualification in this great principle, and she ne- 
ver will. She will sustain your distinguished 
neighbor because she knows he is true to this 
great principle, and when she has helped to 
elect him, by giving as large a majority as can 
be given by any half dozen other States, then 
you will find that she will ask less, exact 
less, from him, and support him more faithfully 
than any other State can do. That is the way 
she did with John Quincy Adams, that is the 
way she sustained Gen. Taylor, and that is the 
way she will sustain Gen. Lincoln. [Great 
cheers.] 

There were loud calls for Gen. Nye, to which 
he responded. While he was speaking the two 
great Republican leaders had a few vords of 
general conversation in the car, within the hear- 
ing of those around them. They expressed 
themselves satisfied as to the result of the elec- 
tion. 

Mr. Lincoln said : Twelve years ago you told 
me that this cause would be successful, and ever 
since I have believed that it would be. Even if 
it did not succeed now, my faith would not be 
shaken. 

An invitation was extended to the party to go 
to some place not definitely understood. They 
left the car for the purpose in Mr. Lincoln's 
company, but, finding that the train would only 
stop a few moments, they turned back, shook 
hands with the President expectant, and resum- 
ed their seats. Mr. Seward was cheered as the 
train swept through the town. 



SPEECH AT MADISON, WISCONSIN, 

September 12, 1860. 

J)UTY AND RESrONSIBILITY OF THE NORTHWEST. 



Fellow-Citizexs — It is a bright September 
sun that is shining down upon us — such a sun 
as nature, ideased with the remembrance of her 
own beneficence, seems to delight in sending 
forth to grace the close of a season which has 
been crowned with abundance and luxuriance, 
unknown even to her own habitual profuseness. 
It is such a sun as nature, pleased with seeing 
the growth of a noble capital in a great State, may 
be supi)osed to send out to illuminate and to 
make more effulgent the magnificent beauties of 



the place in which we are assembled. It is such 
a September sun as we might almost suppose 
nature, sympathizing with the eflforts of good 
men, lovers of liberty, anxious to secure their 
own freedom, to perpetuate that freedom for the 
enjoyment of their posterity, and to extend its 
blessings throughout ihe whole world, and for 
all generations, may have sent forth in token of 
sympathy with such a noble race. [Applause.] 
But, fellow citizens, bright and cheerful as this 
hour is, my heart is oppressed, and I am unable 



39 



it once to lift myself above the sadness of re- 
cent scenes and painful recollections. I obeyed 
the command of the Republican people of Wis- 
consin to appear before them on this, the 12tli 
day of September; and as I approached the 
beautiful seaport, if I may so call the city that 
crowns the shores of Lake Michigan, and affords 
entrance to this magnificent State, I had antici- 
pated, because I had become habituated to, a 
welcome that shculd be distinguished by the 
light of a thousand torches, and by the voices of 
mu»ic and of cannon. But the angel of deaih 
passed just before me on the way, and instead of 
footsteps lighted with the greeting of thousands of 
my fellow citizens, I found only a thick darkness, 
the gloom increased, as only nature's darkness can 
be, by the weeping and wailing of mothers for the 
loss of children, and refusing to be comforted. 
I have been quite unable to rise from that sud- 
den shock ; to forget that instead of the voice of 
a kind and merry and genial welcome, I heard 
only mourning and lamentation in the streets. 

To you, perhaps, the scene seems somewhat 
foreign, because it occurred in your beautiful 
seai)0i t, but it was not merely a municipal ca- 
lamity. It is a calamity and disaster that befalls 
the State, and .strikes home dismay and horror 
to the bosoms of all its people, for those were 
citizens of the State who perished, and those who 
survive are the mourners ; the desolate widows 
and orphans who are bereaved. Let me, before 
I proceed, take the liberty to bring this subject 
home to the State authorities of Wisconsin, and 
to ask and to implore that nothing may be left 
undone, if there is yet anything that can be done, 
to rescue a single suff-^rer from that dreadful ca- 
lamity, and to bring to the comforts of social life, 
and of a sound, good, religious, and public edu- 
cation, the orphans who are left to wander on the 
streets by the lake side. 

Fellow citizens, it is a political law — and when 
I saj' political law, I mean a higher law — [cries 
of "good,"] — a law of Providence, that empire 
has, for the last three thousand years, so long as 
•we have recoi-ds of civilization, made its way 
constantly westward, and that it must continue 
to move on westward until the tides of the re- 
newed and of the decaying civilizations of the 
world meet on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. 
Within a year I have seemed to myself to follow 
the track of empire in its westward march for 
three thousand years I stood but a year ago on 
the hill of Calvary. I stood soon afterward on 
the Piroeus of Athens. Again I found myself on 
the banks of the Tiber. Still advancing westward 
I rested under the shades of the palaces of the 
kings of England, and trod the streets of the now 
renovated capital of France. From those capi- 
tals I made my way at last to Washington, the 
city of established empire for the present genera- 
tion of men, and of influence over the destinies 
of mankind. [Applause.] 

Empire moves far more rapidly in modern 
than it did in ancierit times. The empire estab- 
lished at Washington, is of less than a hundred 
years formation. It was the empire of thirteen 
Atlantic American States. Still practically the 
mission of that empire is fulfilled. The power 
that directs it is ready to pass away from those 
thirteen States, and although held and exercised 
under the same Constitution and national form 
of government, yet it is now in the very act of 
being transferreJ from the thirteen States east 



of the Alleghany mountains and on the coast of 
the Atlantic ocean, to the twenty States that iia 
west of the Alleghanies, and stretch away from 
their base to the base of the Rocky Mouitains. 
The political power of the Republic, the empire 
is alieady here in the plain that stretches be- 
tween the areat lakes on the east and the base 
of the Rocky Mountains on the west ; and you 
are heirs to it. When the next census shall re- 
veal your power, you will be found to be the 
masters of the United States of America, and 
through them the dominating political power of 
the world. [Applause — and voice, "Amen."] 
Our mission, if I may say that I belong to that 
eastern and falling empire instead of the rising 
western one — the mission of the thirteen States 
has been practically accomplished. And what 
is it ? Just like the mission of every other power 
on earth. To reproduce, to produce a new and 
greater and better power than we have been our- 
selves, [applause,] to introduce on the stage of 
human affairs twenty new States and to prepare 
tlie way for twenty more, before whose rising 
greatness and splendor, all our own acliievements 
pale and fade away. We have done this with as 
much forethought perhaps as any people ever 
exercised, by saving the broad domain which j'ou 
and these other forty States are to occupy, savitjg 
it for your possession, and so far as we had vir- 
tue enough, by surrounding it with barriers 
against tlie intrusion of ignorance, superstition 
and slavery. [Applause.] 

Because you are to rise to the ascendant and 
exercise a dominating influence, you are not, 
therefore, to cast off the ancient and honored 
thirteen that opened the way for you and mar- 
shaled you into this noble possession, nor are 
you to cast ofl^the new States of the West. But 
you are to lay still broader foundations, and to 
erect still more noble columns to sustain the 
empire which our fathers established, and which 
it is the manifest will of our Heavenly Father 
shall reach from the shores of the lakes to the 
Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific ocean. It was a free government which 
they established, and it was a self-government — 
a iiovernment such as, on so large a scale, or in- 
deed on any scale, has never before existed. I 
know that when you consider what a magnifi- 
cent destiny you have before you, to lay your 
hand on the Atlantic coast, and to extend your 
power to the Pacific ocean and ^rasp tlie great 
commerce of the east, you will fully api)reciate 
the responsibility. It is only to be done by main- 
taining the Democratic system of government. 
There is no other name given under heaven by 
which, in this generation, nations can be saved 
from desolation and ruin, than Democracy. 
This, to many conservative ears, would seem a 
strange proposition, and yet it is so sini[)le that 
I lack the power almo.st of elucidating it. Look 
at England. She is ambitious, as she well may 
be, and ought to be, to retain that dominion, 
reaching into every part of the habitable globe 
which she now exercises. She is T.kt-ly to do it, 
too, and may do it, by reducing, every succes- 
sive year, the pnver of her aristocracy, ami in- 
troflucinc; more and more, the popular element 
of Democracy into the administration of our 
government. 

In many respects the government of England, 
though more aristocratic, is still less monarchica[ 
than our own. The British empire exists to-day 



40 



onlj'^ by recognizing and gradually adopting the 
(Ureat truth that if tlie British empire is to stand, 
it is the British people who are to maintain that 
eui[)ire and enjoy and exercise it. France, the 
other great European power, which seems to 
stand firmer now than ever, and to be renewing 
her career of prosperity and glory — France, un- 
der tlie form of a despotism, has adopted the 
principle of universal suftVage, and the empire of 
France to-day is a democracy. The Austrian 
empire is falling. And why ? Because democ- 
racy is rising in Germany to demand the libera- 
tion of the people of its various nations, and the 
exercise of universal suffrage. And Italy to-day 
all along the coast of the Mediterranean, is rising 
u]) to the dignity of renewed national life, by 
adopting the principle of universal suffrage and 
the limitation of power by the action of the whole 
people. 

Now if in the Old AVorld, where government 
and empire are entrenched and established so 
strong in hereditary aristocracy, no empire can 
stand except as it yields to the democratic prin- 
ciple; look around over the United States of 
America, and say how long you can hold these 
States in a federal union or maintain one com- 
mon authority or empire here, except on the 
principles of democracy ? Therefore, it is that, 
I say, that you of the northwest are, above all 
things, first, last, and all the time, to recognize 



Some two hundred years ago, when laborers 
were scarce, and the field to be cultivated was 
large, private citizens of the Atlantic States, 
driven, as they said, by the cupidity of the Bri- 
tish Government, introduced the labor of slaves 
into the American Colonies, and then established 
the aristocracy of land and labor. The system 
pervaded nearly the whole Atlantic States. If 
it had not been interrupted it would have per- 
vaded the Continent of America ; and instead of 
what you see, and of what you are a part, and 
of what you do, — instead of emigiation from the 
Eastern States into the prairies of the West, and 
instead of emigration from Europe all over the 
United States, you would have had in the North- 
west this day the Boston and New York mer- 
chant importing laborers instead of freemen into 
the seaports, and dispersing them over the en- 
tire valley of the Mississippi. That would have 
been the condition of civilization on this conti- 
nent. It has been fortunate for you, and fortu- 
nate for us, that such a desecration of the mag- 
nificent scene, provided by nature for the im- 
provement of human society and for the increase 
of human happiness, has been arrested so soon ; 
and you will see how felicitous it is when for 
one moment you compare the condition of Wis- 
consin, and of Maine, and of Iowa, and of Illi- 
nois, and of Indiana, and of all the Free States 
of the Union, wiih the Lslards of the West In- 



as the groat element of the republic, the system ' dies, colonized just at the same time that the 
and principles of democracy. | Atlantic States were colonized, and with the 

But, fellow citizens, it is easy to talk about de- j condition of South America, a whole and entire 
mocracy. I have heard some men prate of it by I new continent, abounding in the most luxuriant 
the hour, and admire it, and shout for it, and ex- ! vegetation and with the greatest resources of 
press their reverence for it ; and yet I have seen I mineral wealth, absolutely reduced to a condi- 
that they never comprehend the simplest e!e- tion of perpetual civil war, and ever renewed 
ment of democracy ? What is it ? Is it the op- ; ruinous desolation. The salvation of North 
posite of monarchy or of aristocracy ? Aristo- I America from all those disasters that have be- 
cracy is maintained everywhere, in all lands, by fallen the Soulhern portion of the continent is 
one of two systems, or by both combined. An j the result of bold and firm procedure on the 



aristocracy is the government in which the pri- 
vileged own the lands, and the many unprivi- 
leged work them, or in which the few privileged 
own the laborers and the laborers work for 
them. In either case the laljorer works on com- 
pulsion, and under the constraint of force ; and 
in either case he takes that which may remain 
after the wants of the owners of land or labor 
are both satisfied. The laborer must rest con- 
tent with the privilege of being protected in his 
peisonal rights ; and the powers of the govern- 
ment are exercised by the owner, of labor and 
of land. 

Here, then, you see I have brought you to the 
consideration of the great problem of society in 
this republic or emjjire. It is this : Is there 
any danger tnat in the United States the citizen 
will not be the owner of the land which he cul- 
tivates 1 If there is any part of the United 
States where the labor or the land is monopo- 
lized by capital, there is a place in which the 
democratic element has not yet had its intro- 
duction or been permitted to work its way effec- 
tually. So, on tlie other hand, as here, where 
you are, no man can nionoi)olize the land which 
another man is obliged to cultivate, much less 
monopolize the labor by which the lands on your 
fields are cultivated, you are entirely and abso- 
lutely established and grounded on democratic 
principles. But, you all know, that has not al- 
ways been the history of our whole country, and, 
at times, was not the condition of any part of it 



part of your ancestors and mine, less than a 
hundred years ago. 

The Government of the United States was es- 
tablished in an auspicious moment. The world 
had become aroused to the injustice as well as to 
the inexpediency of the system of Slavery, and 
the people of the United States, rising up to the 
dignity of the decision that was before them, 
determined to prevent the further extension, as 
far and fast as possible, to seciire the abolition 
of African Slavery. It was under the influence 
of a high, righteous, noble, humane excitement 
like that, that even the State of Virginia, itself a 
Slave State, like the State of New York, deter- 
mined that, so far as her power and her will could 
command the future, Slavery should cease for- 
ever ; first, by abolishing the African Slave 
Trade, which would bring about, ultimately, the 
cessation of domestic Slavery ; and, in the se- 
cond place, by declaring that her consent to the 
cession of territory northwest of the Ohio, of 
which you occupy so beautiful a part, was given 
with the expre ■" condition that it should never 
be the home of Slavery or involuntary servitude. 
[Applause.] 

But, fellow citizens, I need not remind you 
that this, like most other eflTsrts of human so- 
ciety to do good and to advance the welfare of 
mankind, had its painful and unfortunate reac- 
tion. Hardly twenty years had elapsed after the 
passage of those noble acts for the foundation of 
liberty on the North American coutinentj before 



41 



there came over the nation a tide of demoraliza- 
tion, the results of which, coming on us witli 
such fearful rapidity, surpass almost our power 
to describe or to sufficiently deplore. 

What have we seen since that was done ? We 
have seen the people of the United States — for it 
is of no use to cast responsibility on parlies, or 
administrations, or statesmen — extend slavery 
all around the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. We 
have seen them take Texas into the Union and 
agree that she should come in as a Slave State, 
and liave the right to multiply herself into four 
more Slave States. We have seen California 
and New Mexico conquered by the people of the 
United States, with the deliberate consent, if not 
purpose, that Slavery should be extended from 
the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean. We 
have seen the Constitution of the United States, 
perverted by the consent of the people until that 
Constitution, instead of being a law of freedom 
and a citadel of human rights, has come to be 
pronounced by the affected judgment and willing 
consent of the highest tribunal of the United 
States, yet enjoying the confidence and support 
of the people, to be a tower and bulwark of 
human slavery, of African bondage; and you 
have it now announced by tlie government ol 
the United States, which you yourselves brought 
into power, that wherever the Constitution of the 
United States goes, it carries, not freedom with 
the eagles of conquest, but hateful bondage. 
[Applause.] If the principle which you have 
thus permitted to be established is true, then 
there is not an arsenal within the United States, 
not a i.iilitary or naval school of the federal gov- 
ernment, lot a federal jail, not a dock yard, not 
a ship that traverses the ocean, bearing the 
American fiag in any part of the land, where the 
law, the normal law, the law by which men are 
tried and judged, is not a law by winch every 
man whose ancestor was a slave is a slave, and 
by which property in slaves, not freedom of 
man, is the real condition of society ui;der 
the federal system of government. I can only 
ask you to consider for a moment how near you 
have come to losing everything which you enjoy 
of this great interest of freedom. The battle 
culminated at last on the fields of Kansas. 

How severe and how dreadful a battle that has 
been, you all know. It was a great and despe- 
rate effort of the aristocracy of capital in labor, 
to carry their system practically with all its evils 
to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and to cut, 
off the Atlantic States from all communication 
with the sister States on the Pacific, and so extend 
Slavery from the centre, both ways, restorins it 
throughout the whole country. You will say 
that this was a very visionary attempt; but it 
was far from being visionary. It was possible, 
and for a time seemed fearfully probable — prob- 
able for this reason, that the land must have 
labor, and that it must be either the labor of free- 
men or the labor of slaves. Introduce slave labor 
in any way that you can, and free labor is repel- 
led, and avoids it. Slave labor was introduced 
into this country by the opening of the African 
slave trade, and when the Territory of the Uni- 
ted States, in the interior of the continent was 
open to Slavery with your consent and mine, 
nothing then would have remained but to reopen 
and restore the African slave trade ; for it is pro- 
hibited only by a law, and the same i>ower that 
made the law could repeal and abrogate it. The ' 



same power that ahrogatod the Missouri Com- 
promise in 18-54, would, if the efforts to establish 
Slavery in Kansas had been successful, have 
been, after a short time, bold enough, daring 
enough, desperate enough, to have repealed the 
prohibition of the African slave trade. And, in- 
deed, that is yet a possibility now; for, disguise 
these issues now before the American people as 
they may be disguised by the Democratic l)arty, 
yet it is nevertheless perfectly true, that if you 
forego your opposition and resistance to Slavery, 
if this popular resistance should be withdrawn, 
or should, for any reason, cease, then the Afri- 
can slave trade, which at first illegally renew* 
itself along the coasts of our Southern States, 
would gradually steal up the Mississippi, until 
the people, tired with a hopeless resistance, 
should become indifferent, and African Slavery 
uoiild once more become the disgraceful trade 
of the American flag. 

Now, all these evils wonld have happened nil 
this abandonment of the continent of North 
America to slavery would have happened, and 
have been inevitable, had resistance to it de- 
I)ended alone on the people of the thirteen origi- 
nal States. We were already overpowered there. 
P'rom one end of the Atlantic States to the other, 
there were, in 1850, scarcely three States which 
did not declare that henceforth they gave up the 
contest, and that they were willing that the peo- 
l>le of the new Territories might have slavery or 
fieediim, and mifjlit come into the Union as slave 
States or as free States, just as they pleased. 

AVhen that had happened, what would have 
followed 1 Why, that the people who had the 
riaht to slavery if they pleased, had the right 
to get slaves if they pleased. How then were 
u e saved ? It seems almost as if it was Provi- 
dential that these new States of the Northwest, 
the State of Michigan, the State of Wisconsin, 
the State of Iowa, the State of Maryland, the 
Stale of Ohio, founded on this reservation for 
freedom that had been made in the year 1787, 
matured just in the critical moment to inter- 
pose, to rally the free States of the Atlantic 
coast, to call them back to their ancient princi- 
])les, to nerve them to sustain them in the con- 
test at the Capital, and to send their noble and 
true sons and daughters to the plains of Kansas, 
to defend, at the y)eril of their homes, and even 
their lives, if need were, the precious soil which 
had been abandoned by the Government to 
slavery from the intrusion of that, the greatest 
evil that has ever befallen our laud. [Applause.] 
Vou matured in the right time. And how came 
you to "mature ? How came you to be better, 
wiser, than we of the Atlantic States ? The 
reason is a simple one, perfectly plain. Your 
soil had been never polluted by the footprints of 
a slave. Every foot of ours had been redeemed 
from s'avery. You are a people educated in the 
love of freedom, and to whom the practice of 
freedom and of Democracy belongs, for every 
one of you own the land you cultivate, and no 
humiu being that has ever trodden it has worn 
the manacles of a slave. [Loud applause.] 
.\nd you come from other regions too You 
come from the South, where you knew the evils 
of slavery. You come from Germany and from 
Ireland, and from Holland and from France, and 
from all over the face of the globe, where you 
have learned by experience the sufferings that 
re,sult from ari-t >cracy aud oppression. [Ap- 



42 



plause.] And you brought away with you from 
your homes the sentiments, the education of 
freemen. You came tlien just at the right mo- 
ment. You came prepared. You came qualifi- 
ed. You came sent by the Almighty to rescue 
this land and the whole continent from slavery. 
Did ever men have a more glorious duty to per- 
form, or a more beneficent destiny before them 
than the people of the uorihwestern angle tha, 
lies between the Ohio river and the great lakes 
and the Mississippi ? I am glad to see that you 
are worthy of it, tliat you appreciate it. 

It does not need that I should stimulate you 
by an appeal to j'our patriotism, to your love of 
justice, and to your honor, to perfect this great 
work, to persevere in it until you shall bring the 
Government of the United States to stand here- 
after as it stood forty years ago, a tower of free- 
dom, and a refuge for the oppressed of all lands, 
instead of a bulwark of .slavery. [Applause.] I 
prefer rather to deal in what may perhaps be not 
less pleasing to you, and that is, to tell you that 
the whole responsibility rests henceforth directly 
or indirectly on the people of the northwest. 
Abandon that responsibility, and slavery extends 
from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of St. Law- 
rence on the Atlantic coast. There can be no 
virtue in commercial and manufacturing com- 
munities to maintain a Democracy, when the 
Democracy themselves do not want a Demo- 
cracy. [Laughter.] There is no virtue in Pearl 
street, in Wall street, in Court street, in Chestnut 
Etreet, in any other street of great commeicial 
cities, that can save the great Democratic Gov- 
ernment of ours, when you cease to uphold it 
with your intelligent votes, your strong and 
mighty hands. You must, therefore, lead us, as 
we heretofore reserved and prepared the way for 
you. We resign to you the banner of human 
rights and human liberty, on this continent, and 
we bid you be firm, bold and onward, and then 
you may hope that we will be able to follow you. 

I have said that you are to have the responsi- 
bility alone. I have shown you that in the At- 
lantic Northern States we were dependent on 
you. I need not tell you that at present you can 
expect no eifective support or sympathy in the 
Atlantic Southern States. 

You nmst demonstrate the wisdom of our 
cause by argument, by reason, by the firm exer- 
cise of suffrage, in every way in which the hu- 
man intelligence and human judgment can be 
convinced of truth and right —you niu.st demon- 
strate it, giving line upon line and precept upon 
precept, overcoming passion and prejudice and 
enmity, with gentleness, with patience, with 
loving kindness to your brethren of the Slave 
States, until they shall see that the way of wis- 
dom which you have chosen, is also the path of 
peace [Applause.] The Southwest are sharers 
with you of the Northwest in this great inheri- 
tance of empire. It belongs equally to them 
and to you. They have plains as beautiful. 
They have rivers as noble. They have all the 
elements of wealth, prosperity, and j)0wer that 
you have. Still from them, from Kentucky and 
Tennessee, from Missouri and Arkansas, from 
Alabama and Missouri, and Louisiana, you will 
for the present, receive no aid or support; but 
you will have to maintain your principles in op- 
position, although I trust, not in defiance of 
them — and that, for the simple reason that in the 
great year 1787, when Mr. Jefferson proposed 



that Slavery should be excluded in all the pub- 
lic domain of the United States, lying south- 
west, as well as that lying northwest of the 
Ohio river, those States had not the forecast, 
had not the judgment, to surrender the tempo- 
rary conveniences and advantages of Slavery, 
and to elect, as your ancestors chose for you, 
the great system of Free Labor. They chose 
Slavery, and they have to drag out, for some 
years yet, not long, not so long as some of you 
will live, but still so long that they will be a 
drag and a weight upon your movements, in- 
stead of lending you assistance — they have got 
to drag out, to the end, their system of Slave 
Labor. You have, therefore, as you see, the 
whole responsibility. It depends upon you. 
You have no reliance upon the Atlantic States 
of the east, north or south. You have the opposi- 
tion of the southern States on either side of the 
Alleghany mountains ; but still the power is 
with you. You are situated where all powers 
have ever been, that have controlled the destiny 
of the nation to which they belonged. You are 
in the land which produces the wheat and the 
corn, the cereal grains — the land that is covered 
with the oak, and where they say the Slave 
cannot live. They are in the land that pro- 
duces cotton and sugar, and the tropical fruits 
— in the land where they say the white man 
cannot labor, in the land where the white man 
must perish if he have not a negro Slave to pro- 
vide him with food and raiment. [Laughter.] 
They do, indeed, command the mouths of the 
rivers; but what is that worth, except as they 
derive perpetual supplies, perpetual moral re- 
invisoration, from the hardy sons of the north, 
that reside around the sources of those mighty 
rivers 1 [Applause.] 

I am sure that, in this, I am speaking only 
words of truth and experience. The northwest 
is by no means so small as you may think it; I 
speak to you because I feel that I am, and, dur- 
ing all my mature life, have been ono of you. 
Although of New York, I am still a citizen of the 
northwest. [Good.] The northwest extends 
eastward to the base of the Alleghany mountains, 
and does not all of Western New York lie west- 
ward of the Alleghany mountains'? [Good.] 

Whence comes all the inspiration of free soil, 
which spreads itself with such cheerful voices 
over all these plains 1 Why, from New York, 
westward of the Alleghany mountains. The peo- 
ple before me — who are you but New York men, 
while you are men of the northwest ? It is an 
old proverb, that men change the skies but not 
their minds, when they emigrate ; but you have 
changed neither skies nor mind. [Applause.] I 
might call the roll of Western New York, and I 
doubt not that, when I came to Herkimer county, 
I should have a response. I certainly have had 
responses here from Cayuga and Genesee [A 
voice : " Erie "], and from Erie [A voice : " Au- 
bur 1 "], and from Auburn [A voice : " Seneca "], 
and from Seneca [A voice : " Yates "], and from 
Yates ; aye, aye. [Loud laughter.] Bless my 
soul ! I have been laboring under a delusion all 
the time, I thought I was out here, midway be- 
tween the ^lississippi and the Lakes, and I find 
I am standing on the stage in the centre ))ark at 
home. [A voice: " Right at home."] [Another 
voice: " And old Ontario."] And old Ontario. 
We will not forget old Ontario, nor old Oswego, 
nor Oneida. 



43 



Fellow citizens, I will add but one word more ; 
this is not the business of this day alone. It is 
not the business of this year alone. It is not the 
business of the northwest alone. It is the in- 
terest, the destiny of human society on the conti- 
nent. You are to make this whole continent, from 
north to south, from east to west, a land of freedom 
and a laud of happiness. [Applause.] There is no 
power on earth now existing, no empire existing, 
or as yet established, that is to equal or can equal 
in duration the future of the United States. It is 
not for ourselves alone ; you have tlie least possi- 
ble interest in it. It is, indeed, for those children 
of yours. Old John Adams, when at the close 



of the revolutionary war he sat down and count- 
ed up the losses and sacrifices that he had en- 
dured and made, rejoiced in the establishment 
of the independence which had been the great 
object of his life, and said, " I have gained 
nothing. I should have been even more com- 
fortable, perhaps, and more quiet, had we re- 
mained under the British dominion ; but for my 
children, and for their children, and for the 
children of the generation that labored with me, 
I feel that we have done a work which entitles 
us to rejoice, and call upon us by our successes 
to render our thanks to Almighlv God." 



GOA^ERNOH SEWARD'S 



EVENIISrGJ- SPEECH AT D E T R, O I T , 



September 4:, 1860. 



In the evening, after Mr. Seward had made 
liis great speech in Detroit, he was called upon 
at his lodgings (Senator Chandler's) by an im- 
mense multitude. 

Senator Chandler made a few remarks, and 
then gave way to Senator Seward. Loud cheers 
were given for Seward as he came forward to the 
edge of the balcony. He said : 

Fellow Citizens : If I appear in obedience to 
your call to-night, I hope it will only be a new 
illustration of an old practice of mine, never to 
give up an honest and virtuous attempt, though 
I might fail in it the first time. I tried to-day 
and utterly failed to make the Republicans of 
Michigan hear, and now, in obedience to your 
call to-night, renew the effort. Tiie end, on the 
part of the people, is at hand. It is now upon 
us, and the simple reason is that the people have 
become at last attentive, willing to be convinced, 
and satisfied of the soundness of the Republican 
faith. It has been a task. We had first to reach 
the j'oung through the prejudices of the old. I 
have never expected my own age and generation 
to relinquish the prejudices in which they and I 
•were born. I have expected, as has been the 
case heretofore in the history of mankind, that 
the old would remain unconverted, and that the 
great work of reformation and progress would 
rest with the young. That has come at last, for 
though the Democratic party have denied the as- 



cendency and obligations of the " higher law," 
still they bear testimony to it in their lives if not 
in their conversation. [Laughter.] Democracy 
will die in obedience to "higher law," and Re- 
publicans are born, and will be born, and none 
but Republicans will be born in the United States 
after the year of 1860. [Laughter and applause.] 
The fir.st generation of the young men of the 
country, educated in the Republican faith, has 
appeared in your presence by a strong and bold 
demonstrative representa;ion to-night. It is the 
young men who constitute the Wide- Awake force. 
Ten years ago, and twenty years ago, the Wide- 
Awake force were incapable of being organized. 
Four years ago it was organized for the distrac- 
tion of the country and the Republican cause. 
To-day the young men of the United States are 
for the first time on the side of freedom against 
slavery. [Great ap[ilause.] Go on, then, and 
do your work. Put this great cause into the 
keeping of your great, honest, worthy leader, 
Abraham Lincoln. [A voice — " The irrepressi- 
ble conflict."] Believe me sincere when I say 
that if it had devolved upon me to select from all 
men in the United States a man to whom 1 should 
confide the standard of this cause — which is the 
object for which I have lived and for which I 
would be willing to die — that man would have 
been Abraham Lincoln, [Great applause.] 



44 



GOVERNOR SEWARD'S 

SPEECH AT LA CROSSE, WI S CON S IN, 
September 14=, 1S60. 



Gov. Seward reached La Crosse at ten o'clock 
this morning, and found a large crowd of citizens 
— with the inevitable Wide-Awakes among them 
— assembled on the levee. An address of wel- 
come was presented to Mr. Seward, on the deck 
of the steamboat, to which he replied as follows : 

Fellow Citizens — It has always been my pur- 
pose to antici{)ate the progress of civilization in 
the West, by visiting the interior portion of the 
continent before the Indian and liis canoe have 
given place to the white man, the steamer, the 
railroad and the telegraph. With that view, I 
explored, in 1856, the banks of Lake Superior, 
one year only in advance of the establishment of 
civilization at Sault St. Marie. It has been my 
misfortune that I have not been able to execute 
my purpose to visit the Upper Mississippi until I 
find that I can no longer trace on its shores or 
bluffs, or among the people who gather around 
me, a single feature of the portraits of Catlin, 
wliich first made me acquainted with this won- 
derful and romantic region. I must take you 
as I find you. I have come here at last, at- 
tended by a few friends from the Eastern States 
■ — from Ohio, from New York, from Michigan, 
from Massachusetts — with them to see for our- 
selves the wonders of this great civilization which 
are opening here to herald the establishment of 
political j)ower and empire in the Northwest. 
But our antici])ations are surpassed by what we 
see. None of us would have believed that ele- 
gant cities would have so rapidly sjirung up on 
these shores ; nor would we have looked for such 
evidences of improvement and development as 
would require a hundred years to execute in the 
States from which we come. This is gratifying 
to us, because it shows how rapidly the Ameri- 
can people can improve resources, develop wealth, 
and establish constitutional power and guaran- 
tees for the protection of freedom. If we found 
you isolated and separate communities, distinct 
from ourselves, we still should be obliged to re- 
joice in such evidences of prosperity and growing 
greatness. How much more gratifying it is for 
us to find, in everything that we see and hear, ! 
abundant evidences that we are, after all, not 
separate and distinct peoples — not distinct [)eo- 
ples of Iowa, Wisconsin, New York and Massa- 
chusetts, but that we are one people — from Plj-- 
mouth Rock at least to th.^ banks of tlie Missis- 
sippi and to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. 
ll is an afisumnce that enables tis to trample binder 
ourftet every moiaie, every threat of disunion, (very 
alarm and apprehmsion of /he dism'mbcrmei'/t of 
this great empire ; for we fiud in the sentiments 
which you have expressed to us to-day precisely 
the sentimeifts which were kindled two hundred 



years ago on Plymouth Rock, and which are 
spreading wider and wider, taking deeper and 
deeper roots in the American soil. They givo us 
the sure and reliable guarantee that under every 
possible change of condition and circumstance 
the American people will nowhere forget the 
common interests, the common affections and the 
common destiny which make them all one peo- 
ple. 

Mr. Seward addressed a large audience in the 
afternoon. He said that he found it difficult to 
discuss things of the past. Slavery, said he, as 
a federal institution, is obsolete in tliis land. 
Only one argument remains to the Democracy. 
It comes to us loudly and clamorously from the 
Southern States, and querulously and timidly 
from among ourselves. It is that if we do not 
choose to give up the contest, and if we elect our 
candidate, the fabric of this Union shall be broken 
down and shall perish in ruins. That is the 
only argument left — that the Union will be dis- 
solved if we succeed in electing the honorable 
statesman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. Well, 
I propose to address a few words to you on the 
subject, and to examine how imminent that dan- 
ger is with which we are menaced. The Union 
is to be dissolved. Certainly. Why not, if 
Abraham Lincoln, or the Congress of the United 
States acting with him, shall commit any overt 
act that .-ihall be unjust or oppressive to the slave 
States or to any portion of the Union ? But 
they will not wait for that, and they are very wise 
in not waiting for it, because if they put their 
threats on that condition they would, in the first 
l)]aee, have no argument against Mr. Lincoln's 
election, and in the next place they would have to 
wait until after the election before they raised the 
argument. [Laughter.] So it must be on the con- 
dition, pure and simple, that Abraham Lincoln 
sh;dl be elected President of the United States. 

Well, if he be elected, it will be by a majority 
of the American people expressing theii choice 
for him under the forms of the constitution, and 
by the laws made by slaveholders and his oppo- 
nents, equally with freesoilers and their friends, 
if Abraham Lincoln shall be elected lawfully 
and constitutionally, then the government is to 
come down. Bless my soul, fellow-citizens, 
what can we do ? If we like Abraham Lincoln, 
as I am sure you do — don't you ? — [aye, aye, — ] 
if all the jjcople of the United States like him 
better than they like John Bell, or Stephen A. 
Douglas, or Mr. Bieckinridge, how can we help 
his being elected ? [Laughter and applause.] 
If he shall be elected, what is that more than 
the people of the United States have been guilty 
of doing for seventy years, every fourth year— 



45 



electing one man whom they like better than 
any-other man? Is there anything wrong in 
that"? Can you contrive any way in which you 
can elect a minority man — a man wliom the peo- 
ple do not like 1 If so, I should like to see the 
patent produced. What kind of government 
would it be if we elected a man we did not like 
instead of a man we did like 1 My impression 
is that it would be a government not differing 
very far from the empire of Austria, where they 
always manage to elect a man whom tlie peo])le 
do not likf , and where they have an admirable 
way of saving the Union by organizing an army 
of 500,000 men armed to the teeth to maintain 
the man whom the people do not like, rather 
than let them have the man whom they do like. 
[A Voice— That is the way the democrats are 
doing bore.] That is the way they would do 
everywhere ; but that is the verj^ thing which 
cannot be done here. Fellow citizens, let me 
say to you that those who talk about destroying 
this Union, and even those who fear that it is 
going to be destroyed because the people do 
what they lawfully may do and what they have 
a constitutional right to do, know nothing at all 
of the subject of which they are talking. They 
have no idea of what the Union is. They 
have never raised their thoughts so high, nor 
examined its foundations so low, nor surveyed 
its proportions broadly enough to know what 
this Union is. They understand it as a copart- 
nership of thirty-three States, fifteen of which 
delight in the slave trade, and eighteen of which 
dislike and repudiate the slave trade, and pre- 
fer the hiring and compensation of free laborers. 
We may call slavery by gentle names or mod- 
est terms, but slavery is nothing less than the 
trade in slaves, for it makes merchandise of the 
bodies and souls of men. Now these fifteen 
States have the right and have the power, the 
unquestionable and undeniable power, to carry 
on this trade in slaves within these fifteen States 
themselves. We do not interfere with them. 
We have no right to interfere with them. They 
are sovereign on that subject, and are exempt 
from our control. But wheu it comes to the 
federal Union — the Union which is the govern- 
ment over us all — there their right to trade in 
slaves in the Territories of the United States has 
ceased, because the constitution is a constitution 
to establish justice, not injustice ; to maintain 
peace not by force, but by the consent of the 
governed, and to perpetuate, not the curse of 
slavery, but the blessings of liberty to ourselves 
and to our posterity forever. This Union is this 
nation — is this empire of thirty millions of peo- 
ple. It is not made for mere trade, much less for 
trade in the bodies and souls of men. It is 
made for the happiness of the people, for the 
development of the material resources of the 
country, to guarantee peace and safety to every 
citizen in this broad land, and to guarantee him 



in the full enjoyment of all his rights of life, 
liberty and property. It opens to him this vast 
continent for the pursuit of happiness, and by 
its power acting on the governments of the Old 
World and of the New, it makes tlie American 
citizen the citizen of the world. [Applause.] This 
Union of ours gives us a property in the tombs 
at Quincy and Mount Vernon, and in the battle 
fields of Bunker Hill, and Saratoga, and York- 
town. Are these all to be surrendered if any State 
among us should btcome discontented because 
they are not able to secure all the special advan- 
tages from tiie Union that seem to be desirable? 
If the Union is to be dissolved, I have shown 
that the way is not very easy to do it. Now let 
me know who is to do it? It has been said that 
Alabama and Missouri, and Mississippi and Loui- 
siana, and Florida and South Carolina, will go 
out, and then the Union will be dissolved. They 
say, " yoia will not try to take us back ; you will 
not dare to imbrue your hands in brothers' 
blood to re-establish by force of conquest a 
Union which we have repudiated and dissolved." 
They are right. We do not propose to do any 
such thing. In the first place those States are 
not going out. If they go out they go out for a 
cause, and that cause is to save slavery. Well, 
what are they in for, but to have slavery saved 
for them by the federal Union ? Why would 
they go out, for they could not maintain and de- 
fend themselves against their own slaves T We 
would see them march up, one after another, 
under the black flag, trampling under foot those 
stars and stripes of ours. If it were possible I 
should like to see the experiment of old Massa- 
cliusetts going out and endeavoring to carry 
Plymouth rock with her, or I would like to see 
New York go out and carry the harbor and Cats- 
kill mountains with her. What do you think 
tlie rest of the States would say ? I think they 
would fold their arms and see whether they be- 
haved themselves, and they would let them stay 
out just as long as they behaved themselves. 
Well, what would they do if they got out and 
did not behave themselves. If New York should 
levy taxes and imposts, and instead of paying 
them into the national exchequer should keep 
them on her own account, that would not be be- 
having well. Those who think that for nothing 
or for any imaginary cause, the Union is to be 
dissolved or destroyed, have no idea of the na- 
ture of the government under which they live, 
or of the character of the people. Go on, then, 
and do your duty. The lesson of public life is 
one that is easy to be learned. It resolves itself 
simply into thi.s — to ascertain, as you always can, 
what, in the day in which you live, is the great 
work for the welfare of mankind ; do that work 
fearlessly, in the love of your fellow men and in 
the fear of God, and the Union will survive you 
and me and your posterity for a thousand years. 
[Applause.] 



m 



GOVERNOR SEWARD'S 

SPKEOH AT LEAVEN^\^OR-TH. KANSAS 
September 28. 1860. 



Mr. Sewaud returned from Lawrence to Lea- 
venworth on Thursday, hoping to escape any 
further attention in the latter town, but he was 
not so fortunate. The Wide Awakes mustered 
in considerable numbers, and with music, trans- 
parencies and flaming torches, marched to the 
Planters' Hotel, where there was already a large 
crowd assembled. Mr. Seward could not resist 
the demand made upon him, and so he, though 
unwillingly, left his room, walked down to the 
parlor and stepping through the open window 
presented himself, all unattended, on the stand 
which had been constructed in front of the 
building. Ilis appearance was greeted wiih en- 
thusiastic cheers, and ho found himself, like Mr. 
Doujrlas, " betrayed" into making a speech. 

He indulged in anticipation of the time when 
on this broad continent there was to be no othej 
power than that of the United States, and des- 
canted on the importance of their position mid- 
way between the two oceans. One or more great 
States, he said, must rise here in the valley of 
the Mississippi. It might have been, and would 
have been, if her people had been as wise as yon 
are, that State which lies opposite you on the 
Missouri river. I do not know that the State 
of Missouri will not yet be that great State, for 
there is a hope, there is assurance, that Missouri 
•will ultimately, taught by the instruction you 
are giving her and the example you are setting 
her, be a free State. She has soil as fertile, skies 
as genial, as those with which God has blessed 
any portion of the earth. That State will ulti- 
mately be one of the greatest, mo^t respected, 
most prosperous, most honored States in this 
American Union. 

Still he treated of the fundamental condi- 
tions of a State and of a republic, which con- 
ditions are simply these : securing to every man 
equal and exact justice, and the fullest opi)ortu- 
nity for the improvement of his own condition 
and the elevation of his own character by the 
laws and customs that we establish. In this 
respect you are ahead of Missouri, ahead of Ne- 
braska, "ahead of Iowa, aiid ahead of every State 
in the American Union, by reason of the great 
injustice suffered, the great wrongs endured, and 
the great resolution and courage with which you 
have overcome them all. Freedom in the Terri- 



tories of the United States is to all the rest of 
the world a mere abstraction. But it has been 
your misfortune that your Territory was made 
the theatre ot a conflict, the theatre of the trial 
of that " irrcpiessible conflict" — [laughter and 
cheers] — a conflict of mind with mind, voice with 
voice, vote with vote, of bullet against bullet, and 
of cannon agninst cannon. [Loud and tumultu- 
ous cheering.] You have acquired the editcation 
of freedom by practical experience. You have 
the start of all the other States. If there is a 
people in any part of the world I ought to cher- 
ish with endnringrespect, with the warmest grat- 
itude and with the deepest interest, assuredly it 
is the people of Kansas ; for, but for the practi- 
cal trial they have given to the system which I 
had adopted, but for the vindication at so much 
risk and so much cost of their highest rights un- 
der the law, I, for one, would have gone to my 
grave a disappointed man, a false teacher in the 
estimation of the American people. [Applause.] 
Yours is the thirty-first of thirty-four States of 
the Union which I have visited for the purpose 
of knowing their soil, their skies and their peo- 
ple. I have visited, in the course of my lifetime, 
more than three-fourths of the civilized nations 
of the world ; and of all the States and nations 
which I have seen, that people which I hold to 
be the wisest, the worthiest and the best, is the 
people of this little State. [Applause.] The 
reason of it is the old proverb that " Handsome 
is that handsome does." If other nations havo 
higher education, greater refinement, and have 
cultivated the virtues and refinements of civilized 
life more than you have, I have yet to see the 
nation or the people that has been able, in its 
very inception, in its infancy, in its very organi- 
zation, to meet the shock of the aristocratic sys- 
tem, through which other nations have been in- 
jtned or ruined, to repel all attacks, and to come 
out before the world in the attitude of a people 
who will not, under any form of persuasion, se- 
duction or intimidation, consent, any one of 
them, to be a slave, any one of them to make a 
slave, any one of them to hold a slave, or any foot 
of their territory to be trod by a slave, or by a 
man who is not equal to every other man in the 
eye of the law. [Applause.] 



47 



GOVERNOR SEWARD'S 

SPEECH AT ATCHISOI^, KANSAS, 
September 28, 1860 



Mr. Seward was warmly welcomed by the citi- 
zens and ladies of Atchison, and among others 
by Mr. Fairchild, the Mayor, himself a demo- 
crat, and by General Pomeroy. He was intro- 
duced to the assemblage by Mr. Martin, and 
made a very effective speech. Referring to the 
apology made by Mr. Martin, for the inadequa- 
cy of the recep'.ion, he said that they might 
judge of what he himself thought of it,' when he 
declared to them that his welcome bore all the 
impress of those that he had seen given in other 
countries to hereditary despots. Compared with 
other demonstrations in the Territory, this was 
unsurpassed. [Atchison was one of the " bor- 
der ruffian" towns on the Missouri river. — Rep.] 
He said he had tried to avoid all this demonstra- 
tion, which only tended to make him misunder- 
stood, for the world might think that in coming 
to Kansas he came to receive honors, instead of 
coming to learn what was necessary to enable 
him to perform his duty to her citizens better 
than he had heretofore been able to do. 

I find, said he, the Territory of Kansas as rich 
as, if not richer, in its soil and in its eviden- 
ces of material prosperity, than any State with 
which I have been acquainted, and I have al- 
ready visited thirty-one of the thirty-four States 
of the Union. In climate I know of none that 
seems to be so desirable. It is now suflfering — 
in its southern and western counties more es- 
pecially — the privations of want, falling very 
heavily on its latest settlers, resulting from the 
absence of rain for a period of ten or twelve 
months. I go out of the Territory of Kansas 
with a sadness that hangs over and depresses 
me — not because I have not found the country 
far surpassing all my expectations of its improve- 
ment and cultivation — not because I have not- 
found here a prosperous and happy people 
— but because I have found families — some from 
my own State, some from other States and some 
from foreign countries — who were induced — and 
justly and wisely in'iuced — to come to this re- 
gion within the last year or two, and who, hav- 
ing exhausted all their means and all their re- 
sources in establishing homes for themselves, 
have been disappointed in gaining from their 
labor provision for the snppiy of their wants 

I hope that the tales which I have heard are 
exaggerated, and that families are not actually 
pirishing for want in some of the western coun- 
ties of Kansas. I have faith in the complete 
success of your system, and in the prosperity 
and development of the State of Kansas ; I have 
it for the most obvious reason, that if Kansas is 
a failure my whole life has been worse than a 
failure ; but if Kansas shall prove a success — as 
I know it will — then I shall stand redeemed, at 
least in history, for the interest I have taken in j 



the establishment of civilization on the banks of 
the Missouri river upon the principles and poli- 
cy which you have laid down. I pray you — 
you who are rich, you who are prosperous — to 
appoint active and careful men to make research- 
es in the Territory for those who are suffering 
by this dreadful visitation of Providence ; to 
take care that the emigrant who came in last 
winter and last spring be not suft'ered, through 
disappointment and want, to return to the State 
whence he came, carrying back a tale of suffer- 
ing and privation and distress which might re- 
tard for years the development of society here. 
I hope you will not regard this advice of mine 
as being without warrant. I give it for your 
own sake — I give it for the sake of the people of 
Kansas, as well as because my sympathies have 
been moved by the distress I have seen around 
me. 

If this advice shall be taken in good part, then 
I am free to tell you that in my judgment there 
is not the least necessity for any person leaving 
this Territory, notwithstanding the greatness of 
the calamity that has befallen it. 1 have seen 
whole districts that hare produced neither the winter 
wheat, t!or the spring uheat, nor the rye, nor the 
buckwheat, nor the potatoe, nor the root of any kind ; 
yet I have seen on all your prairies, upland and 
bottom land, cattle and horses in great numbers, 
and all of them in most perfect condition ; and I 
am sure that there is a supply of stock in this 
Territory which, if disposed of, would produce 
all that is necessary to relieve every one in the 
Territory. What is required, therefore, is simply 
that you should seek out want where it exists, 
and ap[)ly your own surplus means to relieve it. 
If this should fail, arid if you should feel it neces- 
sary to apply to your countrymen in the East for 
aid, I will second that appeal — I and the gentle- 
men who have been visiting the country with me 
— and it will not be our fault if we do not send 
back from the East the material comforts that 
will cheer and reanimate those who are depressed 
and suffering. This State, larger than any of the 
old thirteen States, has not one acre that is un- 
su'-ceptible of cultivation ; not one foot that may 
not be made productive of the supplies of the 
wants of human life, comforts and luxuries. The 
question was propounded to me — not of my seek- 
ing — it came before me, because I was in a posi- 
tion where I must meet all questions of this kind 
— it came some sis years ago : Do the interests 
of human society require that this land of Kan- 
sas should be possessed by slaveholders and cul- 
tivated with slaves, or possessed and cultivated 
by free men, every one of whom shall own the 
land which he cultivates and the muscles with 
which ho tills the earth 1 When I look back at 
that period, only six or seven years ago, it seems 



m 



strange to me that any man living on this conti- 
nent, himself a free man and having children who 
are free, himself a free laborer and having chil- 
dren who must be free laborers, himself earning 
his own subsistence and having children who 
must depend on their own efforts for their sup- 
port, should be willing to resign a portion of this 
continent so great, a soil so rich, a climate so ge- 
nial, io the support of African negroes instead of 
white men. 

Africa was not crowded for Kansas. Africa 
has never sent to this country one voluntary 
exile or emigrant, and never will. The sons of 
Africa have lands which for them are more pro- 
ductive, have habits more congenial and skies 
better tempered than yours are. I have sup- 
posed it far better, therefore, to leave the jieo- 
ple of Africa where God planted them, on their 
native shores. But the case was different with 
men of my own race — the white men, the blue- 
eyed men, tlie yellow-haired men of England, of 
Ireland, of Scotland, of France, of Germany, of 
Italy. Ever since this continent was discovered 
oppression in every form has been driving them 
from those lands to seek homes for their subsis- 
tence and support on this continent. There is 
no difference between us all except this : that 
my father was driven out of Europe by want 
and privation some hundred years ago, and 
others some hundred years later, and some have 
just come, and tens of thousands, aye, millions, 
have yet to come. We are all exiles directly, or 
represent those who were exiles — all exiles made 
by oppression, superstition and tj-ranny in Eu- 
rope. We are of one family, race and kindred, 
all here in the pursuit of happiness — all seeking 
to improve our condition — all seeking to elevate 
our character. My sympathies have gone with 
this class of men. My efforts liave been, as they 
must always be, to lay open before them the 
vast I'egions of this continent, to the end that we 
may establish here a higher, a better, and a hap- 
pier civilization than that from which ourselves 
or our ancestors were exiled in foreign lands. 

This land should not only be a land of free- 



dom, a land of knowledge and religion, but it 
should be, above all, a land which, as yet can- 
not be said with truth of any part of Europe or 
any other part of the world, a land of civil li- 
berty — and a land can only be made a land of 
liberty by adopting the principle which has never 
yet obtained in Europe, and wliichis only to be at- 
tained by learningit from ourselves — that is, that 
every human being, being necessarily born the sub- 
ject of a government, is a member of the State, 
and has a natural right to be a member of the 
State, and that, in the language of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, all men are born equal 
and have inalienable rights to life, liberty and 
the pursuit of happiness. Some of the States 
were not established on this principle. They 
were established a long time ago, and under cir- 
cumstances which prevented the adoption of this 
principle. For those States, members of our 
Union who have been unable or even unwilling 
to adopt this principle, I have only to say that 
I leave them free to enjoy whatever of happiness, 
and to attain whatever of prosperity, they can 
enjoy and attain with their system. But when I 
am called upon to establish a government for a 
new State, then I demand the application of the 
principles of the Declaration of Independence — 
[appilause] — that every man ought to be and 
should be a free man. Society can have but two 
forms by which the individual can defend him- 
self from oppression. One is that nhich puts the 
muskit into his hand and tells him as the lost resort 
to defend himself and his liberty. The other is 
that iihich puts into his hand the ballot, and tells 
him in every exigency to defend his rights with the 
ballot. I do mabdain that in founding a new State 
u-c hare the perfect liberty as well as thejjerfeet right 
to establish a government uhich shall secure every 
man in his rights; or rather, 1 do say that you 
must put into every man's hand — not into the hands 
of one — the ballot ; or put into every man's hand, 
and not into the hands of a few, the bullet, so that 
every man shall be equal before the law in his power 
as a cdizen. All men shall have the ballot, or none; 
all nun shall have the bullet, or none. [Applause.] 



GOVERNOR SEWARD'S 

SPEECH AT CLEVELAND, OHIO, 

OCTOBER 4, 1860. 



Gov. Seward being introduced was received 
with rousing cheers. He spoke as follows : 

Several Republican citizens, of more eastern 
States than this, including myself, have been 
making a tour of observation in the West. We 
have found every reason to believe, and trust 
confidently, that Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, 
Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota, are safe for the 
Republican cause in the coming election. 



[Cheers.] We also know of no Eastern Free 
State that is doubtful. I am reported, as I find, 
to have said at Springfield that I have been urg- 
ed from home to go back to the State of New 
York : This is erroneous. What I did say was, 
that some ill-informed Republicans in the West 
had been alarmed by the reports of coalitions 
formed, or attempted to be formed, by the oppo- 
sition iu that State, and asked me whether I 



49 



thought it was necessary to go home and look 
after my own State. I say now, as I said then, 
that I should go home when I found any reason 
to believe that the Republican naajority was in 
any danger of being reduced below 60,000. I 
have had no advices of that kind, and no com- 
munications from the State of New York during 
this journey except from a respectable lady re- 
siding at Auburn, who confines herself to taking 
charge of her children and mine, and leaves po- 
litics to take care of themselves. 

\Vc have visited Kansas, and I ask your leave 
to bring the condition of that Territory before 
you, for .your careful and kind consideration. 
Tlie soil and the skies of Kansas are as propitious 
as any people on eartli ever enjoyed — the people 
as free, as true and as brave as any in the world. 
They are suffering severely from a drought so 
great that I think it was scarcely exaggerated 
when they told me they had had no rain in a 
large portion of the Territory for a whole year. 
We found that whole districts had produced less 
vegetable support for human life than are to be 
found in many a garden which we have passed 
in coming through the State of Ohio. Districts 
in which the winter wheat, sowed last year, was 
necessarily plowed up and sowed in the spring 
with spring wheat. The spring wheat was plowed 
up and the ground planted with corn. The 
corn proved a failure and was followed with po- 
tatoes. The potatoes were blasted, and followed 
by buckwheat, which also proved a failure. I 
think that this is a true description of the condi- 
tion of tillage of perhaps two-thirds of Kansas. 
Still, there will be no great famine or distress 
there. The occupants who have been there for 
two, three, four or five years are comfortable and 
well-to-do, as appears abundantly from their 
stock, their fences, their dwelling houses — framed 
of wood, and verj' often substantially and well 
built of brick and stone. Large portions of the 
State are as populous, and exhibit all the signs 
of comfort and thrift, equal to what are found 
even in Ohio. But there are emigrants who have 
resided there for only a year whose whole means 
have been expended in procuring farms and shel- 
ter, and planting their crops, which have succes- 
sively failed. Many of these are leaving the 
Territory — some say so many as one hundred a 
day. They ought to be relieved, and a very lit- 
tle assistance would enable them to remain there 
and retain their possessions and improvements, 
and resume the culture of their fields, under 
more favorable auspices, next spring. With 
much diffidence, I beg to commend this subject 
to tlie ciiizens of Ohio. Perhaps a larger portion 
of the Republicans of Kansas are emigrants from 
Oliio than from any other State. Do not forget 
that Kansas is the most important outpost of the 
Republican army ; that it is yet, on paper at least, 
in a state of sieg-^ ; though the enemy has been 
driven out, a treaty of peace and independence 
has not yet been signed. 

Fellow citizens, I am unable to make you what 
is called a speech, for I have left my voice at 
Chicago ; but I will say something, in order, if 
possible, to not altogether disappoint any expec- 
tations which yon may entertain. You have 
come together, not for amusement, or to gratify 
passion or prejudice. Each of you, as a citizen 
of the United States, is invested with a portion 
of sovereignty over the greatest and most impor- 
tant nation of the world. Time is divided into 
4 



past, present and the future, but there is in 
truth no present. Each one of us, therefore, 
lives in and for the past, or for the future. The 
worst use of time that could be made is to em- 
ploy it in concerns of the past. The past ought 
to have taken care of itself; if it has not we can 
do nothing to change it. The future, only, is 
subject in any degree to our control and direc- 
tion. The past was the time of tradition ; the 
Revolution of '76, the Republican Revolution of 
ISOO, the war of 1812, the Tarifi" controversy, 
the question of the Bank of the United States, 
have passed away, with the generations which 
discussed or acted in them. A man may have 
his opinion upon one or other of those subjects, 
but it leads to no practical conclusion now. Ac- 
tion for the future concerns freedom or slavery 
within the territories of the United States, and 
to discharge our responsibilities well and wisely, 
we must bury our traditions, emancipate our- 
selves and become free, enlightened and intelli- 
gent men. The Past was for the East — the Fu- 
ture is for the West. Empire has culminated in 
the East, and is now passing to the West. The 
Past was for Slavery, which at one time was 
practically universal in the East. The Future is 
Freedom, which, in the order of Providence, is to 
be universal in tlie West. 

The change from past Eastern Slavery to fu- 
ture Western Freedom is to be effected simply 
by bringing the mind of the nation to a just ap- 
prehension o£ what slavery is. Our Fathers in 
the East understood it to be a question simply 
of trade. In their view, while they allowed the 
practice of slavery, they held a slave to be a sub- 
ject of commerce. The Declaration of Indepen- 
dence and the Constitution of the United States, 
announced on the other hand, that slavery is a 
question of human i-ights. While they left the 
regulation of that subject within the States them- 
selves, they did establish the principle that in 
the common Territories of the United States and 
within the sphere of Federal action, every man 
is a person, a man, a fr^e man, who could nei- 
ther hold another in slavery nor be held in bond- 
age by any other man. The past (since the 
adoption of the Constitution) has been occupied 
with trials to compromise this conflict between 
property in man and the freedom of man, and 
these trials have proved unsuccessful. The fa 
ture demands the settlement of it now by a re- 
turn to the principles of the Declaration of In- 
dependence and the Constitution. This con- 
clusion can be reached only by accepting the 
principle of the political ecpiality of men within 
the exclusive range of the Federal Constitution. 
This is simply a matter of education. It is not 
worth while to spend much time upon this sub- 
ject in trying to convert old men ; they cannot 
last long, and therefore can do little harm. We 
all become settled in our opinions and confirmed 
in our habits as we grow old. The Republican 
party is a party chiefly of the young men. 
Each successive year brings into its ranks an in- 
creasing proportion of the young men of this 
country. 

This is the ground of my hope, of my confi- 
dence, that before this generation shall have pass- 
ed away, the Democratic party will cease to exist; 
and the Republican party, or at least its prin- 
ciples, will be accepted and universally pre- 
vail. If it be true, as the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence asserts, that the right of all mea tQ 



S6 



political equality is self-evident, nothinsj can 
prevent the acknowledgment of that fact by the 
generation now rising, since that truth is dis- 
tinctlj^ inculcated now for the first time through 
all the agencies of private and public education. 
The young man who shall reject it will find him- 
self in controversy with the ever-growing senti- 
ment of his countrymen, and the settled ptiblic 
opinion of the world. Let him take heed how 



he enters upon a course which can bring nothing 
but unavailing contention, disappointment and 
regret over the failure of his ambition and of his 
desire for usefulness. Train up your children in 
the belief of this great principle of oar Consti- 
tution, and they will secure for themselves the 
satisfaction of leading useful and honorable 
lives, and follow you to your graves with more 
than even filial veneration. 



GOVERNOR SEWARD'S 

SPEECH AT BUFFALO, N E A\^ Y O li K 

OCTOBER 5, 1860. 



Fellow Citizens — I understand this demon- 
stration. It is only kindness that makes it 
turbulent. But in order that you may hear a 
voice which has been exercised for five weeks, it 
will be necessary for you to hold your tongues 
and open your ears. I am now within a hundred 
and fifty miles of my home, and I remember that 
" a prophet is not without honor save in his own 
country." So am I not going to prophesy so 
near my own place of residence. I thank you 
sincerely for this welcome of myself and of the 
party with whom I have been traveling in the 
far West. 

I have seen, within a year, all the principal 
people who inhabit the shores of the Mediterra- 
nean ; and within tlie last live weeks have jour- 
neyed among the population dwelling along the 
Mediterranean of America. I have seen those 
decayed and desolate countries — tlie sites of the 
greatest nations of antiquity — now covered with 
ruins and some in a state almost of semi-barbar- 
ism. The chief cause of that decay and desolation 
I believe to have been the existence in those 
countries of human bondage. 

The one great evil which could bring down our 
country to such a level, would be the introduc- 
tion of Slavery to the lands surrounding the 
Mediterranean of America. Therefore it is tliat 
I have devoted what little talent I possess to pre- 
vent the ban of Slavery from falling upon the 
fertile valleys of the Mississippi and Missouri. 

Having seen many States, I come back to New 
York, prouder of her, and prouder tliat I belong 
to her, than I was when I left. I estimate lier so 
Jiighly, not alone lor what she is or has, at home, 
but also for what she is and has in the Great West. 
While I see around me here, so many generous 
and noble men endeavoring to maintain her in 
her proud position, I have also found, all along 
the shores of the great lakes, along the banks of 
the great rivers, and even at the foot of the 
Rocky Mountains, children of the State of New 
York, almost as numerous as at home. Wiscon- 
sin, Michigan, Illinois and Kansas, are all daugh- 
ters of New York, so is California, and more 



States have been formed under her auspices, 
then there were at the beginning of the Union. 
Emigrants from Erie county, from Chautauqua, 
from Cattaraugus, from Oswego, and from all 
the counties of this great State, peojile the West. 
It was a son of New York who first applied 
steam to locomotion ; a citizen of New York, and 
also its chief magistrate, who began and perfect- 
ed tlie Erie Canal, and over that canal the stream 
of emigration has flowed which has founded new- 
Slates. It has carried, sometimes, in a day the 
people of a western town, a county in a few 
weeks, and a State in two or three years. New 
York has built the West. 

But I am, perhaps, speaking in too general 
terms. Doubtless the spirit which animates you 
at present, is roused in regard to the coming 
election. It will gladden you when I say in re- 
lation to the state of the West, and I have had 
assurances there which leave no doubt that it will 
give its vote for Lincoln. I have seen him at his 
own home, and I have now to say, as I said be- 
fore I went West, that he is a man eminently 
worthy of the support of every honest voter, and 
well qualified to discharge the duties of the 
Chief Magistracy. Above all, he is reliable ; and 
I repeat at the foot of Lake Erie, what I said at tlie 
head of it ; t^iat if it had fallen to me to name a 
man to be elected as next President of the United 
States, I would have chosen Abraham Lincoln. 

I have promised out West that the State of 
New York will give him 60,000 majority in No- 
vember. Am I right in this ? [A voice, " dou- 
ble it!"J Then you are to multiply that by two, 
are you ? Well, that is no more than you ought 
to do, and if you keep " wide awake " it is no 
more than you can do. 

Now, my friends, I am deliberating on this es- 
timate of yours, and I wish to know what you 
have to say for Erie county. What majority will 
Erie county give ? [Divei-s answers were made 
to this query ; " 5,000 " seemed to be the preva- 
lent figure ; others said, 2,500 out of the city of 
Bufflvlo.] Mr. Seward : Aye, you count majorities 
in the rural districts. That is right and safe too. 



51 



It is very fortunate that whatever may be the 
way with ihe population on the sidewalks, the 
rural distiicts are safe for freedom. Why, gen- 
tlemen, you couldn't take any man three months 
from Main street, out into the free open country, 
witliout converting him from Democracy and 
making him so that he would never think of vo- 
ting for a Democratic candidate, or a two-faced 
candidate, or a candidate with half a dozen prin- 
ciples. Well ! we'll see what we can do with the 
cities this time. When the cities begin to find 
out that they are not going to rule the country, 
they will conclude, perhaps, that it is better that 
the country should rule them. 

It is very strange that Irishmen and Germans 
and Swedes, so long as they remain on the side- 



walks, should wi-h to be ruled by men in the in- 
terest of the slave power. [ Cries, " It is not so 
here."] But you say, it is not so here. I have 
been West and have seen foreigners there also 
who did not wish to be ruled by slaveholders. 

But I have alrendy talked more than I had in- 
tended, and must stop. [A voice, " What about 
Kansas?"] You wish to hear about Kansas? 
I will tell you. What is the population of Buf- 
falo ? [A voice, " 81,000."] W' ell, whenever the 
city of Buffalo shall have come to be inhabited 
by 100,000, or 103,000— which is just the popu- 
lation of Kansas — as virtuous, as wise, as brave, 
as fearless as the 103,000 of Kansas, there will 
be an end of the '■ irrepressible conflict." Good 
night. 



GOVERNOR SEWARD'S 

SPEECH AT EA-W^RENOE, KANSAS. 

SEPTEMBER 26. 1860. 



Fellow Citizens — A long cheiished desire of 
mine is fulfilled ; at last, a long deferred duty is 
about to be paid — the desire of my heart to see 
the people of Kansas — the duty that I felt I owed 
to the people of Kansas, to see them in their 
own homes and in their own houses. I have 
visited your chief cities Leavenworth and Law- 
rence — where the army of mercenaries sent by 
the Slave States battered down the hotel, under 
an indictment and conviction in a court of the 
United States as a nuisance, because it sheltered 
the freemen who had come here to see Freedom 
established in Kansas. And I have looked, 
also, upon the Constitution Hall, in Topeka, 
where the army of the United States, for the 
first time in the history of our nation, dispersed 
a lawful and peaceable assembly of citizens of 
the United States, convened to counsel upon the 
best means of protecting their lives, their pro- 
perty and sacred honor. You, people of Kan- 
sas, whom 1 have not been able to see in your 
homes, have come up here to greet me, from the 
valleys of the Kansas, the Big Blue, and the Ne- 
osho, and from all your plains and valleys. 

I seem not to have journeyed hither, but to 
have floated across the sea, — the prairie sea, — 
under bright autumnal skies, wafted by genial 
breezes into the havens where I wished to be. 
I am not sorry that my visit has occurred at this 
particular time, so sad in its influence, when na- 
ture, that sends its rains upon the unjust as well 
as the just, has for a year withdrawn its genial 
showers from the soil of Kansas. It is well to 
see one's friends in darkness and sadness, as well 
us in the hour of joy. 

I have beheld the scenes of your former con- 
flicts. I have also looked upon that beautiful 



eminence on the banks of the Kansas river, 
where Lecompton sits a lonely widow, [cheers 
and laughter,] desolate and mourning, her am- 
bitious structures showing how high is the am- 
bition of Slavery, and their desolation showing 
how easy, after all, is her downfall. I would 
have seen more of Kansas, if I had not been in- 
terrupted and impeded in my course through 
the State by the hospitality and kinduesa of the 
people, which I could not turn aside. I have 
been excessively retentive at Leavenworth and 
Topeka, refusing to open my lips, unless my 
jaws were pried open, because I do not like to 
say things by piecemeal. 

1 desire to speak openly to you, in the broad 
daj'light, in the hearing of the women as well aa 
men of Kansas ; and here, where I have renew- 
ed the memories of the contest waged upon this 
soil, while I see around me the broken imple- 
ments with which that contest was waged by 
the aggressors under the plea of popular sove- 
reignty, which left the people perlectly free to 
do just as they please, subject to the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, which they were left 
perfectly free to interpret as they pleased, while 
the authorities at Washington have never been 
able to interpret it. 

When I look at field after field, and cabin after 
cabin, and church after church, and school house 
after school house, where but six years ago was 
the unbroken range of savages, 1 am prepared 
here — not expecting to escape being heard on 
the Pacific as well as the Atlantic coast — I am 
prepared to declare, and do declare you people 
of Kansas, the most intelligent, and the bravest 
and most virtuous people of the United States. 
[Applause.] That is the most intelUgeut, aiid 



52 



bravest and most virtuous people, which can 
take the banner of Human Freedom when it is 
trailed in the dust by the government of its 
choice, and can and does raise it aloft and pro- 
tect it, and bear it to success and honor— and 
that without bloodshed and violence. 

People of Kansas ! you are at once the young- 
est, the newest people— the newest Slate, as 
well as the youngest of all the thirty-four Amer- 
ican States ; you are the poorest in wealth, the 
least favored 'with political power, for you are 
nearly disfranchised— and yet you are the most 
inflexible, and the most constant. Tlie two 
richest States in the Union are Massachusetts 
and New York, but they are so merely because 
they are the freest, tlie wisest, and the most 
libertv-loving States of the Union. I apprehend 
that you scarcely understand yourselves the im- 
portance of the' position which you hold in this 
Republic. You will perhaps be surprised, when 
I tell you that the secret of all ihe interest I 
have felt in you has been merely this : that you 

(occupy a jiivotal position in the Republic of the 
United States, with regard to Slavery and Free- 
dom. There is no contest, no dilierence on this 
subject, along the line of the Northeastern 
Slates, for they are hostile to Slavery. There is 
no dilierence on the line of the Southern States, 
for they are in favor of Slavery. But there has 
been a seeere strife between Freedom and Slave- 
ry, for the establishment of Freedom or Slavery, 
in all the wide region reaching from the Missouri 
to the Pacific Ocean. If Freedom was to tri- 
umph in this contest, there was no point where 
she could expect to meet the .enemy, except on 
the very place she has met it— here. And if 
ycu had been false. Slavery would have swept 
along through the Indian Territory, Texas, and 
the whole of the country, including the Rocky 
Moifntains, to the Pacific Ocean. 

California was imperfectly secured to Free- 
dom, and with a compromise. You opened a 
new campaign here, to reclaim what was given 
up in that already broken compromise, and it 
has been crowned with a complete victory. 
Henceforth, the battle is ended ; henceforth, the 
emigrant from the Eastern States, from Germa- 
ny and Ireland, the free laborer, in short, from 
every land on the earth, when lie reaches the 
Missouri river, will enter on a broad land of im- 
partial liberty. 

He can safely pursue his way under the ban- 
ner of Freedom to the foot of the Rocky Moun- 
tains ; and there the hosts of freemen from the 
western coast will unite and join under the same 
banner, extending Noi-th and South. Every- 
where, except in Missouri, is a land of Freedom. 
Missouri stands an island of Slavery in the midst 
of a broad ocean of Liberty. You occupy not 
only the pivotal position, but it was your fortune 
to attempt this great enterprise in behalf of 
Freedom at a critical ]ieriod for mankind. Sla- 
very was then just 200 years old, in the United 
States. In the year 1776, our fathers gave bat- 
tle to Slavery ; they declared war against it, and 
pledged their lives and sacred honor, in the ser- 
vice against it. Practically, it was to be de- 
stroyed peaceably, under the Constitution of the 
United States. Those good men believed it 
would reach its end long before this period ; but 
|-the people became demoralized. The war went 
I back, beak, BACK, until 1854— until all guaranties 
■■ of Freedom, in every part of the United States 



I were abandoned, and Kansas, that had for forty 
years been perfectly free from the footsteps of 
the slave, was pronounced by the highest power 
of the Government as much a Slave State as 
South Carolina. The flag of the United States 
was made the harbinger, not of Freedom, but of 
Human Bondage. 

It was at this crisis that the jjeople of Kansas 
apj)eared on the stage, reviled and des[)ised, and 
lifted the banner of Liberty on /.igh, and bore it 
manfully for\vard, defied all force, and yet coun- 
teracted peaceably all the eflbrts made to subdue 
them. In three years they not only secured 
Freedom in Kansas, but in all the Territory of 
the United States. 

Freedom made Kansas as free as Massachu- 
setts, and made the Federal Government, on and 
aiter the 4th of March next, the patron of Free- 
dom — what it was at the beginning. Y'ou have 
made Freedom national, and Slavery sectional. 
Had you receded after your first conditional or 
provisional Government was dispersed at Tope- 
ka, by. cannon and bayonet ; had you surrender- 
ed and accepted the Lecompton Constitution ; 
had you even abandoned the Wyandolt Consti- 
tution, at any stage of the battle, it would have 
destroyed the cause of Freedom, noi only in 
Kansas, but also throughout the whole Union. 
I know I sha 1 bo justified in liistory ; shall I 
not be justified by cotemporaries ? Wise, best, 
bravest of citizens ; no other hundred thousand 
people in the United States have contributed as 
nmch for the cause of Freedom, as Kansas. 
Before this peojjle, then, appearing for the first 
time, I bow myself, as I have never done be- 
fore 10 any other people, in profound reverence. 
[Sensation.] I salute you with gratitude and 
utlection. 

Fellow citizens, my time here, as well as 
yours, is brief. It is but few of many subjects 
upon wliich we can even touch. As to the least 
important subject of all, myself, I give you, in 
one word, my sincere and heartfelt thanks. I 
had formed my opinion of you from your past 
conduct and history. I have not been disap- 
pointed in your kindness. For all that remains 
to me, give yourselves no trouble. Freedom is 
saved uufl assured to California and Kansas, 
and therefore assured to the future stales in the 
Rocky Mountains. If I may, indeed, hope that 
my poor name will find a place in the history of 
California and Kansas, then all the ambition I 
have ever clierished is more than abundantly 
satisfied. 

The second consideration to which I would 
advert for a moment, is this sadness which lies 
like a jial! over a large part of the Territory of 
Kansas— the result of the withdrawal of the 
rain for a peiiod so long as to excite apprehen- 
sions of a famine. 

I have carefully examined the condition of 
Kansas— the river bottoms and the prairies, and 
my conclusion is — not more from the condition 
of the crops, than from the character of the peo- 
ple—that there will be no famine in Kansas, 
because there is wealth imd credit enough in 
Kansas to carry you through more than one year 
like this. You will take care of this credit, and 
retain it, so far as possible. If this will not do, 
then appeal to your friends in the East, and ihey 
will not see you suffer. I myself will do what I 
can for you. Be of good cheer. Sufier your- 
I selves not to be discouraged. There are cattle 



53 



enough on your thousand hillg, if sold — although 
it is a tearful sacrifice — to carry you through 
and sustain Vdu during; the winter, and still 
come out in the spring with milch cows and 
working; oxen. And we who are here — comiug 
from States whence emigration flows, and from 
the Atlantic States, where emigration is received 
and sent onward — will all do our share to direct 
emigration to Kansas, assuring them from our 
own observation that it is a climate as salubrious 
as any in the world, and a soil as rich as any 
the sun ever shone upon. This is a smiling and 
fair dominion, and we think, were we set back 
twenty or thirty years, the place of all others 
that we would seek in the United States would 
be the plains of Kansas. [Applause.] 

One other consideration. When we see be- 
fore us the transactions of this day, do they not 
illustrate the subject of tlie " irrepressible con- 
flict 1" [Cheers and laughter.] Did not our 
forefathers, in 1787, settle this whole question, 
and, by an ordinance, put at rest forever the 
question of Freedom and Slavery in the United 
States 1 Certainly they did. Did they not, in 
1820, settle this conflict forever ? Did they not 
declare that all north of 3(5 deg. 30 lat., and 
west of the Missouri river should be given up 
to Freedom 1 Certainly they. did. Was it not 
settled finally a third time in 1850, when Kan- 
sas and Nebraska were still saved to Freedom, 
and al! lying west of them ? Was it not settled 
a f urth time in 1S34, when it was ordained that 
the people of Kansas were free to choose Free- 
dom or Slavery for themselves, subject to the 
Constitution of the United States ? Was it not 
settled for the fifth time, when the Lecompton 
Constitution was adopted by one scratch of the 
pen of the President of the United States and the 
Supreme Court — and this became a land of Slave- 
ry? 

A Voice : We did not tike that government. 
Mr. Seward : You didn't take it — that is just 
what I was going to say. 

I Why was not Slavery settled by all these set- 
tlements ? For no other reason than because 
the conflict was irrepressible. But you deter- I 
mined, in your struggle for Kansas, that she 
shall he forever free ; and that settles the question. 
A Voice : K is not settled yet. There's New 
Mexico. 

Mr. Seward : My friend tells me it is not set- 
tled yet, but it is settled in Kansas and for Kan- 
sas. In New Mexico they tried to settle it in 
favor of Slavery, but they now find out it is irre- 
pressible there. I think you will find that the 
whole battle was settled to the deliverance of 
Kansas, and that henceforth Freedom will be tri- 
umjdiant in all the Territories of the United 
States. 

And yet, while this is clear to these intelligent, 
practical and sensible men who have gone 
through the problem, what a contrast is seen 
here to what is occurring in other parts of the 
United States, where they suppose, because they 
are older, they are so much wiser ; where they 
believe me still as false a prophet as Mohammed. 
In Pennsylvania they have not yet made up their 
minds that there is any conflict at all, much less 
that it is irrepressible. In the Southern States 
they are actually organising a militia against the 
freemen who are establishing Freedom in Kan- 
sas and New Mexico, as if the settlers in Kansas 
were no wiser than they are, and vi'ould seek to 



propagate Freedom by the sword. When free- 
men want to make a Territory free, they give it 
ballot boxes, and schoolhouses and churches; 
and Slavery will never triumph where these are 
first established. 

But to go a little deeper into the subject. In 
1776 and 1787, there were wise men administer- 
ing the Government of the United States ; and 
if you look into their sayings, you will see they 
had all found out that this Republic was to be 
the home of an ever-increasing people, so free, 
so proud, so wise, so vigorous, that they could 
not be confined in the old thirteen States ; they 
saw that this Republic was to be (he home of 
free men, of free labor, and not slave labor. So, 
they set apart all the Territory within their reach, 
/. e., all they then had control over — for Free- 
dom and for free emigration. Now, contrast 
that which was wisely done in 1787 with what ac- 
tually happened in 1850 ! In 1820 it was found 
that the population of the United States had 
crossed the Mississippi. Then wliat was neces- 
sary was, to provide exactly the same kind of 
government for the Territory west of the Missis- 
sippi, as had teen provided for the country east 
of it ; so that, when the government should 
be extended to the Pacific, all should he free. 
Could anything have been wiser than for Gov- 
ernment in 1850 to have given Freedom to 
these Territories ? But it did not. They had 
previously given Missouri to Slavery, and said 
Freeilom might take the rest ; but now they 
wished to block up free labor by the barrier of 
slave Missouri. Could anything have been more 
absurd than to thus attempt to stay the course 
of freemen ? Either free labor must go out of 
the United States, or it must go round Missouri 
to Kansas and New Mexico. It did go round for 
a short season, but then it broke their harfiers, 
and passed through the very garrison of the slave 
power. 

There were long ago good and brave men who 
foretold this result. There was John Quincy 
Adams, who remonstrated against the extension 
of Slavery as political suicide. 

There were Henry W. Taylor, James Tall- 
madge, and peerless among them all, Rufus 
King, who declared in the Senate of the United 
States, that the Slave Power in Missouri would 
prove a mockery ; that this land was for liberty; 
and that the Slave Power would repent in sack- 
cloth and ashes. But these good men were over- 
ruled. Missouri and Arkansas came into the 
Union with Slavery. And for what reason 1 It 
was because the slaveholders had property — 
capital which must not be confiscated, even to 
prevent Slavery from being established over as 
large a domain as half of Europe. This was 
the reason the Federal Government determined 
to secure their slaves to the capitalists of Mis- 
souri. What capital had Missouri in slaves that 
was saved at that time ? All the slaves in Mis- 
souri at that time, were exactly 10,220 in num- 
ber — and I was born a slaveholder, and know 
something of the value of slaves, at that time 
three hundred dollars a head, including the old 
and young, the sick and decrepid, which made 
the total value of the slaves in Missouri, in 
1820, $3,066,000. Arkansas then had 1.600 
slaves, worth $480,000. The whole capital of 
slaves in Missouri and Arkansas was about $3,- 
500,000, but to save that capital in negroes, tlie 
great compromise of 1850 was made, and Kansas 



54 



given up to Slavery. Three million five hundred 
thousand dollars was a large sum, but nobddy 
then or ever proposed to confiscate it. They were 
left free to sell their slaves ; they were at liberty 
to keep them, so only that they should import 
no more. There was no need of confiscatinj^ the 
slaves in Missouri any more than there was in 
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jer- 
sey and Pennsylvania, so this $3,500,000 was 
nevei- in jeopardy. 

Now then, fellow citizens, even if it had been 
confiscated, how small a sacrifice of property it 
was, weighed against the incalculable blessing 
of Freedom over the American continent. Look 
now at. the advantages of their success, and see 
how unavailing are the contrivances of politi- 
cians, and even of nations, to counteract and 
control the great moving principle of the age. 
Who would have thought, and who now, of the 
wisest men in the Slave States and many from 
the other States, can believe that by making 
Missouri a Slave State in 1820, forty years after- 
wards, wheu the canals of New York and Penn- 
sylvania were burdened with commerce, when 
steamers dotted all our inland lakes and rivers, 
when teachers and preachers were abroad 
through the land, that they could make a Slave 
State out of Kansas ? They tried it, and what 
have they got? They have got Slavery in Mis- 
souri and Arkansas ; Freedom in Kansas, and 
practically in New Mexico, in Utah and Califor- 
nia. That is wliat comes from attempting to 
bind up the decrees of Providence in flaxen 
bands by human skill. [Applause.] Why did 
their attempt fail 1 It failed because society has 
its rights and its necessities. It was just as ne- 
cessary that men should move out of Massachu- 
setts and New York and the Western States, and 
Missouri even, into the Territories, as it is neces- 
sary that Kansas and other Territories should 
receive them when they have come. It was just 
as necessary that the exile f)f Europe should 
have a jjlace where he was perfectly free to have 
no slaves. The movement of the age is quicken- 
ed by the agency of min<i and of inventions ; all 
the operations of trade, the arts and manufac- 
tures, are accelerated by mechanical skill. Who 
thinks now of drawing himself to town with a 
pair of mules? The steam engine carries him 
there with less cost than he could walk or go on 
wagons. All the implements with which work 
and husbandry are done, are the jjroduct of me- 
chanical skill. Every farmer sees that by the 
improvements made in the implements for culti- 
vating the soil, every year he is able to dispense 
with the services of one more laborer, who be- 
comes hini'^elf an indejjendent farmer. 

Europp has been in a state of commotion for 
more than sixty years, and still is. Ireland was 
bottnd to seek relief; Germany was over jiopu- 
lated, and must have an outlet for her energy 
and labor. What madness and folly, then, that 
the statesmen of 1820 should open this country 
to Slavery, and instead of securing it teeming 
with wealth and abundant cultivation, have it 
abandoned to the product of negroes at $1,500 a 
liead 1 [Laughter.] It is because I speak so 
plainly of these things that some believe me not 
a very conservative man. 

I think you are wiser than your fathers, where- 
ever you may have come from. I had a father 
who was a very wise man, but I think I should 
be unworthy of him, had I not sought to improve 



my better opportunities to become a wiser man 
than he. It would have been much better 
for Missouri and Arkansas could they have fore- 
seen the consequence of their action. The 
consequence of their embracing Slavery is that 
the tide of emigration in 1820, which would na- 
turally have come up the Mississippi river was 
driven round into other regions. Instead of en- 
tering at New Orleans, it sought the ports of 
New Yoik and Quebec, peojiled the Provinces 
of Canada and the line of the Northern Lakes. 
There are three millions of settlers in the Pro- 
vinces which Slavery in Missouri sent round 
there. This same tide of emigration peopled 
Northern Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan, and 
thence passed west to Iowa, Nebraska and Kan- 
sas. Missouri has thus lost from her soil all 
this population. At last the mass of emigration 
got to be so dense that it could not divide and 
s|)read itself, so making a great rush, it swept 
through Missouri, through the very strongholds 
of Slavery. There is not within the longitude 
of my voice probably one man, if I\Iissouri had 
been wise, and had not driven emigration from 
its natural course, that would ever have set foot 
on the soil of Kansas. There is population 
enough in Kansas now to make Missouri a great 
State. But Missouri does not want to be a great 
Slate. She prefers to wait and be a Slave State. 
[Laughter.] She has no aflection for the people 
of the North, but a great affection for the people 
of the South. She has no atlection for free la- 
bor, but a great affection for slave labor. She 
has no free speech ; she is satisfied to have what 
she may say, or may not, controlled by the Slave 
Power. This is a sad case for Missouri, but not 
hopele-s. She must look for deliverance to Kan- 
sas, which Missouri at first overrun and subju- 
gated, and which Missouri refused to let come 
into the Union, biit which is drawing emigration 
through Missouri, and opening the way, and 
marking out the very coirise, and inviting Mis- 
souri on, and calling upon Eastern capitalists to 
open a national hishway to Pike's Peak and 
California. Missouri to-day is richer by mil- 
lions on millions by the settlement of Kansas l)y 
free men. All her hopes of competition with 
the free Northern States are based upon what 
you are doing, and can do, and will do, to make 
a Pacific railroad through to the Pacific ocean. 

Never was policy of any State more suicidal ; 
for either she is to be forever a slave State, as 
she desiies to be, or she had better have been 
free from the beginning. If she is a Slave State, 
she must be a planting State merely, and the 
value of her land would be near'y worthless — 
for on an average the value of land in a free State 
is exactly three-fold the value of land in a slave 
State. Then, if Missouri wants to be a Slave 
State, the wisest thing she can do is to do on the 
west what she has done on the east — i. e., to con- 
sent to be surrounded withfree, prosperous States. 

These free States which you are building in 
Kansas and Nebraska, aie showing and opening 
the true national highway to the Pacific Ocean. 
You are producing around Missouri the influen- 
ces which they dread, and call abolitionising. I 
don't know any way in which such an operation 
can lie done with so much quietness, as to go 
round her, and leave her to abolitionise herself. 
She will doit, too, because Missouri has got capi- 
tal, and she will find out that if she is a slave 
^ State and Kansas free, Kansas, iu twenty years, 



55 



will send more members to Congress than Mis- 
souri — and people, though slaveholders don't like 
to give up political power. 

Another lesson which this occasion teaches us, 
is instructive in an eminent degree. When Mis- 
souri, in 1820, compelled Congress to admit her 
as a slave State, and in 1854 to abrogate the Mis- 
souri Compromise, and in 1856 drove all freemen 
from Kansas, in order to have Slavery in Kansas, 
she did not see how futile would be her efforts, 
lissouri obtained these concessions for Slavery 
rom the General Government, not because the 
people of the United States love Slavery, but be- 
cause they love the Union. 

But all the efforts of the slave power were de- 
feated by bands of emigrants from New England, 
from New York and other Eastern States, from 
Germany and Ireland — who came up the Mis- 
souri river, fearless of cannons, and found the 
slaveholders here armed; and they drove them 
out of the Territory, and established what is 
called an "Abolition" Territory — making it a 
place for connection by the " Underground Rail 
Road" with every State. Who would have be- 
lieved that this could have been done, and that 
we should have met here to-day to celebrate it 
with all kinds of demonstrations — by the firing 
of cannon, by dinners and balls — and the Union 
be just as safe now as it was before ? [Cheers.] 

Another consideration. It is not our choice, 
fellow citizens, that our lot as a people is cast 
upon a continent, and that we are so constituted 
that in spite of ourselves we must become, soon- 
er or later, the possessors of the whole continent 
of North America, from Hudson's Bay to the 
Gulf of Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic 
coast. France and Spain and Great Britain, who 
formerly occupied vast possessions on this conti- 
nent, have been gradually giving way, retiring. 
Every year they are weaker, and it is only a 
question of fifty o^; one hundred years, before we 
shall be masters of the American Confederacy or 
Republic, over all this. 

Now, a government which is to be extended 
over a continent needs wealth ; it needs riches. 
A great government needs wealth in proportion 
to its extent ; its people must have wealth as an 
element of their happiness and prosperity. It is 
utterly contemptible and ridiculous to say, that 
the continent of North America, instead of being 
peopled by free men, who are willing to take it 
at fortj' acres apiece and enrich it, — instead of 
this, to turn off all these free laborers, and get 
slaves from Africa at two hundred dollars a 
head. What wealth have they in the Slave 
States ? I much mistake if the people of Kansas 
would, ten years hence, exchange their wealth 
for that of the Old Dominion — slaves included. 

Great nations require something more than 



weaitn ; they need intelligence, vigor and en- 
ergy among the people. You are to-day planted 
here, where, if, as they apprehend, the slaves be- 
come discontented, and the people of the slave 
States are to be protected, you are the very men 
upon whom they must rely for that protection ; 
you are the men to defend them ; you mu^t also 
raise the means to defend the national fl^ig upon 
every sea, and over all this continent. Give men 
freedom ; then every freeman will give you a re- 
turn — an equivalent for it ; deny them that, and 
every man becomes an alien, an enemj', under 
the Government. You remember how feeble and 
defenceless we Free State men were ten years 
ago : you see now that we are established in Kan- 
sas — npon the Pacific ocean in the centre of the 
continent , and we might almost say that — 
" We are monarchs of all we survey." 

This success, this power, has been obtained — 
how ? It has been obtained amid reproach, in- 
vective, against force, fraud, and the power of 
the Federal Government. This success will soon 
be made still more apparent by the election of 
Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency. [Cheers.] 
And this victory has been built upon nothing ex- 
cept those smooth, round pebbles with which 
we laid the foundations — and the storms of earth 
and hell shall not jjrevail against it. 

It reminds me of that beautiful island of Capri, 
on which the rocks are piled in native deform- 
ity, but in native strength, upon whose summits 
I found the ruins of the palaces of Domitian and 
Nero. Y''et when I entered a cavern on the 
shore, I found that the whole Island rested on a 
foundation of coral. 

These are the considerations which present 
themselves to me on coming among you. I have 
kept nothing back. Henceforth, if my confi- 
dence in the stability of the American Union 
wavers, I shall come here to learn that the Union 
is stronger than human ambition, because it is 
founded in the affection of the American people. 
If ever I shall waver in my affection for Free- 
dom, I shall come up here and renew it — here 
under the inspiration of one hundred thousand 
freemen, saved from Slavery. Henceforth, these 
shall not be my sentiments alone, but the senti- 
ments of ALL. Men will come up to Kansas as 
they go up to Jerusalem. This shall be a sacred 
city. 

For my brethren and companions' sake, then, 
I say — Peace be within your walls, and plente- 
ousness in all your cabins, soon to become pal- 
aces. And now, people of Kansas, once more 
Hail I and at the same time, Farewell. 

[Three most enthusiastic cheers were then 
given by all the assembled multitude for Gov. 
Seward.] 






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